
s F J.v.j 



PRESENTED I'.V 



Virginia Life 



tn 



Fiction 




by 

Jay B.Hubbell 



T7irginia Xiife 



i?i 



Fiction 



% 



By 

Jay Broadus Hubbell, Ph. D. 

Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Re- 
quirements for the Degree of Doctor 
of Philosophy, in the Faculty 
of Philosophy, Columbia 
University 

DALLAS- 
19 2 2 



"Virginia I/ife 



in 



Fiction 



% 



By 

Jay Broadus Hubbell, Ph. D, 

E. A. Lilly Professor of English in 
Southern Methodist University 



-+ 



TO 

Judge William % % ^mith 



31ft 



THIS MONOGRAPH has been approved by the 
Department of English and Comparative Lit- 
erature in Columbia University as a contribution 
to knowledge worthy of publication. 

A. H. Thorndike 

Executive Officer 



CONTENTS 



Preface r 

I. Introduction ...•••• / 

II. Colonial Virginia . . ■ • • 41 

III. The Revolution 4? 

IV. The Old Regime 

V 7 . The Civil War 

VI. Modern Virginia 

Bibliography ....••• 
Vita 







?'■ 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [5 



PREFACE 

When I began this study seven years ago, I hoped to do 
for my native state, if possible, what Mr. H. S. Krans has 
so delightfully done for Ireland in his Irish Life in Irish 
Fiction. 1 did not foresee that the different nature of my 
materials would force me to write a very different kind of 
book. In particular, I failed to see that I should be com- 
pelled to devote so much space to historical legends, which 
are so intimately connected with Virginia fiction that they 
could not be ignored. I hope no one will think that my com- 
ments upon the makers of these legends are malicious. I 
have come to the conclusion that far too little attention has 
been paid to the very close connection between Ameri- 
can fiction and American social history. In a study of the 
other backgrounds of American fiction, on which I am now 
working, I hope to do for other sections what I have done 
for Virginia. 

This dissertation was completed over two years ago, and 
it would have been printed in full and at a much earlier 
date but for a rascal of a publisher into whose hands I was 
so unlucky as to fall. For this abstract I have rewritten and 
expanded my introductory chapter so that it now contains 
the more important conclusions of a three-hundred-page 
manuscript. The five other chapters are very briefly epit- 
omized, but the bibliography is printed entire. 

I wish to express my appreciation of the courtesy of Dr. 
H. R. Mcllwaine of the Virginia State Library and of the 
officials of the New York Public Library and of the 
libraries of Columbia University and the New York Society. 
I am deeply indebted to my colleague, Professor John Owen 
Reaty, for the privilege of reading his forthcoming John 
Esten Cooke: Virginian and for other information concern- 
ing Cooke's life and work. I wish also to express my ap- 
preciation of the helpful advice given me by Professors W. 



6] VIRGINIA I.TFI-: IN FICTION 

P. Trent, A. H. Thorndike, and John Erskine, and, above 
all, by Dr. Carl Van Doren, literary editor of the Nation, 
who suggested the subject to me and directed my investiga- 
tion and assisted me in every way possible . Last of all, 1 
wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to my wife for criti- 
cism and assistance of almost every other kind without 
which this study might never have been completed. 

Jay B. Hubbkll 
Southern Methodist University 

Dallas, Texas 

Mav. 1922 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [7 

CHAPTER ONE 

Introduction 

As indicated by the title, this book is a study of Virginia 
as a background in fiction. Its chief purpose is to show- 
how Virginia settings have been handled by various writers 
of fiction. These settings vary widely in time and in locali- 
ty ; for the history of Virginia has been long and eventful, 
and racial and geographical influences have never permitted 
the social life of the state to become uniform. There is also 
great diversity in the writers who have been attracted to 
Virginia backgrounds. The authors are not limited to those 
born in the state, or even in America ; and they represent a 
considerable variety of literary aims. 

This volume is necessarily also to some extent a history 
of Virginia social life; for, as Woodberry has said, "Any 
discussion of Virginia matters finally turns to a descrip- ' 
tion of the social life, which was the pride of the State and 
its chief pleasure." The chronological method which has 
been employed should give the reader a fairly accurate ac- 
count of Virginia's development from an aristocratic col- 
ony into a democratic commonwealth. The historical picture, 
it need hardly be said, differs markedly from that usually 
found in fiction. Apart from some of the earlier novelists, 
the best accounts of Virginia life are to be found in the * 
writings of Northern and European travelers. 

In the way of local color and historical picturesqueness 
no state in the Union has more to offer the novelist than 
Virginia. Even when stripped of its legendary accretions, 
there is much in the history of the state which appeals to the ' 
imagination of the writer of fiction. Virginia has the lost 
causes and the vanished social order which are so dear to 
historical romance. The social life of the old regime still 
possesses, even when accurately portrayed, as it seldom is, 
a picturesqueness and a charm which are all the more at- 



8] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

tractive perhaps because that life now seems so un-Ameri- 
can. Until after the Civil War, life in Virginia was in 
v many respects semi-feudal ; for economic conditions there 
had perpetuated and strengthened the surviving feudal 
characteristics of seventeenth century England. Thus Vir- 
ginia developed a sort of chivalric regime of her own, which 
the popular imagination, working through historians and 
writers of fiction, has made the most romantic background 
in America. 

In American historical romance ante-bellum Virginia 
plays somewhat the same part that the age of chivalry 
plays in British poetry and fiction. Virginia life was full 
of sharp contrasts, such as Scott loved, which lend them- 
selves better to the novelist's hand than the external uni- 
formity of modern American life. The influence of Scott, 
in fact, is almost everywhere present in Virginia fiction. 
.Most of Scott's character types are easily paralleled in Vir- 
ginia life. The aristocratic planter replaces the English 
baron and the Scottish laird ; the indentured servant and 
the negro slave take the place of the vassal and the serf; 
and the Indian and the mountaineer sometimes assume the 
role of the outlaw of the Scottish Highlands. It was Scott, 
too, who taught the American novelists to see the value of 
Mich contrasting types as the Puritan and the Cavalier, the 
poor white and the planter, the democratic mountaineer and 
(he Tidewater aristocrat. In fact, Colonial Virginia is es- 
sentially a part of the background of British historical ro- 
mance. It is easy to connect Virginia with Elizabeth, Shake- 
speare, Raleigh, Drake, the Stuarts, and the Cavaliers. Vir- 
ginia history abounds in events which were picturesque 
even before they were retouched by the romantic hand of 
tradition. That history is full of wars, and nothing so capti- 
vates the romantic imagination as "the pomp and circum- 
stance of glorious war." There are numerous Indian wars 
supplying material as rich as that which Cooper found in 
upper Xew York. There is the Revolution, which came to 
its spectacular close under ;i Virginian general and upon 



VIRGINIA l.II-K IN FICTION [9 

Virginian soil. And, richest field of all, there is the Civil 
War, the most decisive battles of which were likewise fought 
upon Virginian territory and under Virginian generals. 
Finally, in the period following the war, novelists nave 
found abundant materials in the rise of the poor white, .he 
fortunes of the free negro, and, above all, in the pathetic 
situation of the ruined aristocrat struggling bravely to pre 
serve his traditions and make his way in an alien civiliza- 
tion. 

The rich literary backgrounds of Virginia life and his- 
tory come to almost every novelist already obscured by tra- l 
dition and legend. As clearly as possible, we shall endeavor 
to trace the development of that romantic glamor of legend 
and tradition which has obscured the history of the state and 
influenced the whole course of Virginia fiction. 

"In all current literature there is nothing more remarka- 
ble than the way in which writers have unconsciously con- 
spired to over-idealise Virginia," says Arthur Granville 
Bradley, a shrewd English student of Virginia life, whose 
writings have been persistently neglected by native his- 
torians. Although the Indian, the Puritan, the frontier 
scout, the California miner, and the Texas cowboy have each , 
a role in fiction and in popular tradition which: bears little 
resemblance to historic reality, the old Virginia gentleman 
is more of a legendary figure than any one of these. The 
idealization of Virginia comes to far more than the glorify 
ing touch of an old soldier's memory or the natural tendency 
of the romancer to cast a glamor over his scenes and char- 
acters. The Virginia tradition rests upon a mass of legends 
piled one upon the other like the cities which Schliemann 
unearthed at Troy. This tradition ignores the greater part 
of the white population and even important geographical di- 
visions of the state. It tells of a half- fictitious Golden Age 
"befo de wah," of a colonial age of well-nigh mythical Cav- 
aliers, and of a Revolution that never happened. 

In making a chivalric lord of the Virginia tobacco planter, 
legend has obscured the greatest charm of the old Virginia 



10] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

life, its homespun simplicity. The planter was a cultivated 
and leisurely farmer, but he was no baron ; he was not even 
an English country gentleman. His estate of two or three 
thousand acres was no principality, and his rambling wooden 
house was no baronial mansion. His luxury consisted in 
the numerous ragged and inefficient servants who attended 
him and in the abundance of home-grown provisions — wa- 
termelons, apple cider, mint juleps, country ham, roasting 
ears, and "snaps." His thriftless agricultural methods kept 
him almost invariably in debt. He was too poor and too re- 
mote from towns to lead the wild and hilarious life which 
the Abolitionist ascribed to him. His life, in short, was a 
simple and monotonous one, varied chiefly by the presence 
of guests and the changes w'hich the seasons bring upon 
the farm. 

The strangest aspect of the Virginia legend is the fact 
that, in fiction and popular tradition, North as well as South, 
the small planter class has overshadowed every other class 
except the poor whites and the slaves. Of the vastly more 
numerous middle-class farmers we hear nothing except in 
recent histories. In the Virginia tradition there are no sec- 
ond families — except those that emigrated to North Caro- 
lina. The unromantic census reports, however, remind us 
that in 1860 there were in the entire state only 114 persons 
who owned as many as 100 slaves, and this out of a white 
population of over 1,000,000. There were, of course, some 
poor and even landless gentlemen, but probably not many. 
If all who claim descent from wealthy old Virginian 
families are to be believed, these 1 14 families were the most 
prolific on record. 

The Virginia of legend and fiction lies east of the Blue 
Ridge ; the role of Western Virginia is negligible. Yet life 
in western Virginia was not less picturesque. Virginia 
mountaineers are of the same stock that Charles Egbert 
Craddock and John Fox discovered in Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky. The explanation of this neglect is that ever since 
(!k dine of Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 there has been con- 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [ 1 1 

stant friction between east and west. Lowlander and high- 
lander, or Tuckahoe and Cohee, as they used to be called, 
had little in common. The Cohee, of Scotch-Irish or Ger- 
man descent, was a small farmer who owned no slaves and 
hated the high-handed slave-holder of the lowlands. He 
was, as Professor F. J. Turner first pointed out, essentially 
a Westerner with the traditional hostility of the frontiers- 
man to the East. The western element has played a small 
part in the Virginia tradition because it was the lowland" 
planter who perpetuated the traditions and wrote the his- 
tories of the Old Dominion. 

Yet it was the western element, which Virginia tradition 
ignores, that brought on the Revolution. Patrick Henry 
was the spokesman of this frontier democracy. The plan- 
ters fought loyally though unwillingly when the frontiers- 
men forced them into the war; but the aristocracy fur- 
nished only the lesser Virginia statesmen, the Lees, the 
Randolphs, Bland, Wythe, and Mason. The great leaders 
without exception are to be classed with the west. Neither 
Washington, Henry, Madison, nor Marshall belonged to the 
great planter families; and Jefferson, though related to the 
Randolphs, lived on the frontier and, like Jackson and Lin- 
coln, learned his first lessons in democracy there. Yet the 
planters, who did not want to fight, succeeded in imposing 
upon the world for a century the myth that they were re- 
sponsible for the stand which Virginia took. Never did 
legend more completely reverse historic fact. The reason is 
not difficult to guess. The western party not only forced 
Virginia into the war; it wrought a social revolution in the 
life of the state by disestablishing the Anglican Church and 
abolishing the laws of primogeniture and entail which had 
kept intact the great planter estates, j This party, under the 
leadership of Henry and Jefferson, became the nucleus of 
the national Democratic Party, which even today is not 
adored by men of wealth and position. 

If we are to understand how stratum upon stratum of 
legend has been gradually formed till it obscures the earlier 



12] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FR"I [ON 

history of Virginia, it is necessary to digress for a moment 
to note what was till a few years ago an almost universal 
Southern trait. The Virginian, even more than other 
Southerners, was a deteriorationist. He helieved in the in- 
evitable superiority of the former times. This typically 
Virginian view was well expressed by George W. Bagby in 
his lecture, The Old Virginia Gentleman. "I can but think," 
said he, "that, since the Colonial and Revolutionary days, 
each generation has shown a slight falling away from those 
grand models of men and women who really existed in Vir- 
ginia, but whom we have come to look upon almost a^ 
myths."' Even at this late day, the older Virginian farmers 
will tell you that since the war everything has deteriorated — 
crops, farmhands, climate, manners, morals — everything. 
One farmer whom I know insists in all seriousness that the 
sap in the sugar-maple is not so sweet as it was before the 
war. Mark Twain tells the story of an old negro woman 
who, in reply to a New Yorker's praise of the beautiful 
Southern moon, said, "Ah, bless yo' heart, honey, you jes' 
ought to seen dat moon befo' de waw !" 

It was in the years following the Revolution that the Vir- 
ginian became the backward-looking glorifier of the past. In 
those years Virginia sank rapidly in population and import- 
ance from first to fifth among the states. The large estates 
had been split up by Jefferson's laws; and many of the 
planters, completely ruined, migrated to other states, car- 
rying their proud traditions with them. The divided estates 
fell into the hands of small farmers and overseers. The few 
planters who remained behind, poor and despairing, could 
not help contrasting their present hard lot with that of their 
wealthy fathers. "In whose hands now," said Henry Clay 
in 1833, "are the once proud seats of Westover. Cerles, May- 
cocks, Shirly, and others on the James and in lower Vir- 
ginia? They have passed into other and stranger hands. 
Some of the descendants of illustrious parentage have gone 
to the far West, while others, lingering behind have con- 
trasted their present condition with that of their venerated 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [13 

ancestors. They behold themselves excluded from their fa- 
thers' houses, now in the hands of those who were once their 
fathers' overseers, or sinking into decay." Times were hard ; 
the price of tobacco was low ; and the slaves were too 
numerous to be profitable — if, indeed, they had ever been. 
John Randolph prophesied that eventually the masters 
would run away from their slaves to keep from having to 
feed and clothe them. The rich lands of the Tidewater had 
been worn out by two centuries of wasteful cultivation, 
against which Washington had protested in vain. What 
wonder if in their distress the ruined aristocrats idealized 
the years of their prosperity and power! 

In the thirties the South experienced a profound social 
and political change which has seldom been noticed. While 
the North and the West were in man}- ways growing more 
democratic, Virginia turned her back squarely upon her Rev- 
lutionary leaders and began to build up an aristocratic social 
order remarkably like that which Jefferson had overthrown. 
All hough universally supposed to be a continuation of the 
colonial aristocracy, the new gentry was. as a whole, 
nothing of the kind. It was made up in the main of small I 
farmers and overseers who had bought up the old estates. 
The underlying economic cause of this social change in 
Virginia was that slavery, winch for half a century had 
been a moribund institution, without apologists, had once ' 
more become profitable. Cotton was now enthroned in the 
lower South, and the high prices paid in the Cult" states 
made Virginia's surplus slaves a means of restoring to the 
Old Dominion a portion of her colonial prosperity. At the 
same time the rise of the Northern Abolitionists' and the 
Southampton Insurrection, popularly attributed to their 
agency, made it impossible for the eastern Virginian to op- 
pose slavery. Virginia's new political leaders followed Cal- 
houn, who was building up a social and political philosophy 
with slavery as its corner-stone. In fact, two Virginians, 
Dew and Fitzhugh, were among the ablest exponents of this 
undemocratic philosophy. Reaction, we ma> add, W as also 



14] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

the fashion in Europe ; men were losing faith in democracy. 
In Virginia many of the small farmers who had precipi- 
tated the state into the Revolution were now compelled 
either to leave the state or to accept a social station subordi- 
nate to that of the new planter aristocracy. 

It is significant that the phrase "Southen chivalry" first 
appeared about 1835. Like the newly rich everywhere, the 
new aristocracy wanted ancestors. It was inevitable that 
they should claim to be a continuation of the almost extinct 
colonial gentry. In glorifying their imaginary ancestors, 
the new aristocrats created a picture of Colonial and Re- 
volutionary Virginia which is largely legendary. Caruthers 
and Cooke, who pictured the earlier epochs in their melo- 
dramatic romances, gave the first families credit for what 
the frontiersmen had done. The new aristocracy forgot the 
plebeian followers of Henry and Jefferson ; and though they 
condemned Jefferson's democracy as "glittering fallacies," 
they even claimed Jefferson himself as one of their own 
number. 

The extraordinary development of the Cavalier myth is 
significant of the change which came over the South in the 
thirties. In the histories of Virginia the estimates of the 
number of Cavaliers who settled in Virginia steadily in- 
crease while the number of indentured servants as steadily 
declines. Caruthers's romance, The Cavaliers of Virginia, 
added wings to the legend. The fact that the term Cavalier 
had indicated only a political and not a social class was rap- 
idly forgotten. All Cavaliers were now supposed to have 
been gentlemen. In the final stage all Virginians and all 
other Southerners became descendants of the British nobil- 
ity! In 1860 Robert Toombs, of Georgia, made his fam his 
boast, "We [of the South] are a race of gentlemen." The 
enormous spread of the Cavalier myth, in fact, seems in 
large part responsible for English and French sympathy with 
the cause of the Confederacy. 

It was not the Southerner alone, however, who made a 
lord of the Virginia planter. Stoutly as the Abolitionists 



VIRGINIA 1.1 Flv I N FICTION f 1 5 

denied the social superiority of the Virginian's origin, they 
too made a lord of the slave-owner. Hating him and 
slavery, they pictured him as a feudal tyrant ruling hi-^ 
thousands with a rod of iron. They portrayed him as cruel, 
proud, idle, luxurious, dissipated. They pointed to the poor 
whites as proof of the degrading influence of slavery upon 
the white man ; but they said nothing of the much more 
numerous middle-class farmers who also held slaves. Now- 
adays when trained reporters are scouring the four quarters 
of the earth to supply an eager public with first-hand new- 
of every event, it seems incredible that the Abolitionists, al- 
most to a man, knew nothing of slavery from personal ob- 
servation. Seldom has the world seen men more credulous 
of the things they wished to believe and more blind to what 
they did not wish to see. Apart from William Ellery 
Channing, practically none of the Abolitionists had ever so- 
journed in the South ; and it was Channing who, while tutor 
in the Randolph family in Richmond, wrote of the Virginia 
people : 

"I blush for my own people when I compare the selfish 
prudence of a Yankee with the generous confidence of a 

Virginian There is one single trait which attaches me 

to the people I live with, more than all the virtues of New 
England. They love money less than we do. They are 
more disinterested. Their patriotism is not tied to their < 
purse-strings. Could I only take away from the Virginians 
their sensuality and their slaves, I should think them the 
greatest people in the world." 

In a memorable comparison between Southern and North- 
ern gentlemen, James Ford Rhodes has said : 

"The Southern gentleman was to the manner born. In 
society and conversation he appeared to the best advantage. 
He had self-assurance, an easy bearing, and to women a 
chivalrous courtesy; he was 'stately but condescending, 
haughty but jovial.' Underneath all were physical courage, a 
habit of command, a keen sense of honor, and a generous 
disposition If we reckon by numbers, there were 



16] VIRGINIA I.TFKTN FICTION 

certainly more well-bred people at the North than at the 
South; but when we compare the cream of society in both 
sections, the palm must be awarded to the slave-holding com- 
munity. The testimony of English gentlemen and ladies, 
few of whom have any sympathy with slavery, is almost 

unanimous in this respect The Northern men 

seemed frequently overweighted with business cares, and, 
except on the subjects of trade, politics, and the material 
growth of the country, were not good talkers. The mer- 
chant or manufacturer of Boston, New York, or Philadel- 
phia was a busy man ; he had not the leisure of his South- 
ern brother to cultivate the amenities of life, and he lacked 
that abandon of manners which Englishmen found so 
charming in the slave-holding lords. This superiority of 
the best Southern society undoubtedly grew out of the social 
system of which slaver}' was the basis." 

To understand how the years preceding the Civil War 
came to be regarded as a Golden Age, Arcadian and per- 
fect, one must note how later events have colored the Vir- 
ginian's attitude toward the past. After fighting for that 
old regime during four desperate years as men have seldom 
fought for any cause, good or bad, he had seen his civili- 
an overthrown, relegated to the past which holds the 
kingdoms of Caesar and Charlemagne. No wonder he 
loved it. But the worst had not yet come. After Appo- 
matox he was somewhat reconciled to the loss of his slaves; 
but lie was not prepared for Reconstruction, which seemed 
to him an attempt to "Yankee-ize" him in mind and soul. 
Reconstruction appeared to him an attempt to force him 
give up not only his ancient mode of living but even his 
whole view nf life. No wonder he resisted desperately and, 
unable to save anything else which belonged to the past, 
cherished its memory as a sacred thing. 

To the bankrupt planter all seemed chaos; and, indeed, 
there was enough to make him despair. He knew nothing 
about handling free labor; and, with the Union League and 
the Freedman's Bureau to interfere with his plans, negro 



VIRGINIA LIFE I N I- K ! ION [ 17 

labor was more inefficient than ever before. The planter's 
lands, even in Piedmont, were worn out ; and he knew 
nothing of rotation of crops or other modern methods of 
restoring the soil. Almost to a man, the planters fled one 
by nne to the cities, ruined. The old social order was gone, 
and the old homes stood untenanted, going to ruin and de- 
cay. What wonder if in poverty and bitterness the plan- 
ter pined for the good old days before the war ! Kven the 
negroes themselves idealized the past, so that Page could 
with perfect appropriateness put into their mouths his idyllic- 
pictures of life in the old regime. 

The Civil War seemed to the broken planter the one 
great epic event in history. The great battles had been 
fought under Virginian generals and on Virginian soil. To 
the Virginian the war had been a second and more glorious 
struggle for independence. Reconstruction made the Lost 
Cause in his eyes a sacred thing. Slavery he would admit 
was wrong, but secession never. "The collapse of the old 
order," wrote Henry James after a visit to Richmond, "the 
humiliation of defeat, the bereavement and bankruptcy in- 
volved, represented, with its obscure miseries and tragedies, 
the social revolution the most unrecorded and undepicted, 
in proportion to its magnitude, that ever was; so that this 
reversion of the starved spirit to the things of the heroic 
age, the four epic years, is a definite soothing salve." 

In the chaotic confusion of Reconstruction Virginia old 
social lines began to be rubbed out, and new lines of cleav- 
age were forming. While so many of the planters were 
finding it impossible to adjust themselves to the new eco- 
nomic order, the middle-class farmers, performing their 
own labor, managed to hold their own and often to rise to 
wealth and power. In politics and in business also new 
men came to the front. The new men, constituting an aris- 
tocracy based on wealth, wanted ancestors, for wealth alone 
did not give the best of social standing. In this confused 
period of transition it was easy to magnify one's ancestry. 
Nearly all the genuine aristocrats were ruined, and many 



18] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

1 ad gone to other states. Few had now the wealth to sup- 
their claims to good birth. By 1880 few knew with 
any certainty who had belonged to the gentry in the pre- 
war days. In fact, it was then, and is now, frequently im- 
possible to distinguish the sons of gentlemen from the sons 
(if plebeians. Even the poor whites, imitating their social 
superiors, began to claim descent from fine old Virginia 
families ruined by the war. 

Here, if an apparent digression may be permitted, we 
shall note the part of the Virginian emigrant in establishing 
the Virginia tradition in the nation at large. The two periods 
of decay which followed the Revolution and the Civil War 
led to wholesale emigration to the West, the lower South, 
and, in the later period, to the cities of the North. The 
ruined gentry migrated in larger numbers than any other 
class ; and they carried their traditions with them, often 
their only asset. Naturally enough, the emigrant Virginian 
became more intensely Virginian than he had been at home. 
In proportion to his distance from the mother state, the 
glory of the emigrant's name increased; for F. F. V. was 
a badge of distinction honored all over the country. The 
novels of Mark Twain and Edward Eggleston, both West- 
erners of Virginian ancestry, abound in evidence of this 
fact. Not all emigrants, to be sure, were professional Vir- 
ginians ; but with a credulous audience it was hard for the 
Virginian not to romance about his ancestry. 

The migratory movement attracted chiefly the dissatis- 
fied and the aggressive. As in modern England, it was the 
conservative element which remained behind to give its tone 
to institutions and social life. And it is always the conserv- 
ative who looks to the past, distrusting innovation, cher- 
ishing traditions, and building legends. 

The idealization of Virginia is the work of time and the 
imagination of a people. It is not the creation of the novel- 
ist's brain ; for the novelist can only use it as it comes to 
him, giving it literary expression. Bret I larte's romantic 
pictures of the forty-niners did not appear until the unique 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [19 

life he described had practically ceased to exist. Harte 
himself confessed that it was years before that life took on 
in his imagination the perspective necessary to successful 
treatment in fiction. Most of Hawthorne's work was done 
for him before he was born. For over two centuries the New 
England imagination had been creating a legendary portrait 
of the Puritans to which he had only to give literary ex- 
pression. Uncas would have seemed incredible to a genera- 
tion of New Yorkers who lived in hourly peril of the tom- 
ahawk and the scalping knife ; but once the Indian was gone, 
it was easy to idealize him, to remember his virtues and 
forget his vices. It has been often asserted that America 
has no legends. As a matter of fact, we have many though 
none that have been so highly developed as the great liter- 
ary legends of Europe. The Puritan, the Indian, the fron- 
tiersman, and the Virginia planter have all become leg- 
endary. Until they did so, they could not be adequately 
treated in poetry or romantic fiction. At least, so it seemed 
to our earlier novelists following the Scott tradition. In 
the case of Virginia, the legend is older and less true to 
historic fact ; but it has undoubtedly greatly helped to make 
Virginia the most romantic state in the Union. Yet as one 
studies the history of the state, the reality often appears 
more interesting and more human than the traditional story ; 
and one wishes that John Esten Cooke and other earlier 
novelists had been less blind to the picturesqueness of the 
Virginia of their own time. 

The Novelists of Virginia Life 

It has seemed best in this study to group works of fiction 
according to the historical period with which they deal 
rather than in the order in which they were written. Since 
this method presupposes on the part of the reader a knowl- 
edge of the groups into which the novelists fall, it has 
seemed advisable to insert here a brief discussion of the 
chief novelists of Virginia life and thus to give some ac- 
count of the development of Virginia fiction. 



20J VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

As we shall see in the following chapter, Virginia plays 
a minor part in Elizabethan literature.* Drayton and 
Daniel, among others, sing of the glories of the New World 
and of their hope of a great English empire in Virginia. 
Drayton's Ode to the I r irginian I 'oyage, which Fiske terms 
"a poet laureate's farewell blessing." is well known. Daniel 
saw in Virginia a glorious future for his native tongue: 

And who, in time, knows whither we may vent 

The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores 

This gain of our best glory shall be sent, 

T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores? 

What worlds in th' yet unformed Occident 

May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours? 

Elizabethan dramatists, however, ridicule the whole col- 
onial enterprise on account of the character of the early 
emigrants and the methods used to induce them to go to 
Virginia. In The City Madam of Massinger a villain pro- 
poses to send his nieces and sister-in-law to Virginia. Thev 
protest : 

Lady Frugal. How! Virginia! 
High Heaven forbid! Remember, sir, I beseech you. 
What creatures are shipped thither. 

Anne. Condemned wretches, 
Forfeited to the law. 

Mary. Strumpets and bawds, 
For the abomination of their life, 
3pewed out of their own country. 

Eastward Hoe (1605) by Jonson, Chapman, and Mars- 
ton, brilliantly satirizes the methods used to foster emigra- 
tion to the colony. 

This unromantic view of Virginia became the traditional 
one in early English fiction. To the Elizabethan dramatists, 
Mrs. Aphra Behn, and Defoe Virginia was the haven of the 
criminal and the indentured servant. The Virginia tradi- 
tion is the antithesis of all this. Caruthers, Cooke, and 
Mary Johnston describe the Virginia of the Cavaliers. 

In Defoe's Moll Flanders and Colonel Jacque, both pub- 
lished in 1722, Virginia is represented as the ideal refuge 

*See also C. M. Gayley: Shakespeare and the Founders of 
Liberty in America. 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [21 

for the vagrant, the pauper, and the jailbird. Colonel 
Jacque gives an excellent illustration of the possibility that 
a criminal might rehabilitate himself in Virginia. In three 
years Jack has earned his freedom and a plantation of his 
own. Defoe's knowledge of Virginia geography and the 
legal status of the indentured servant is surprisingly accu- 
rate. 

On this side of the Atlantic, Virginia fiction may be said 
»o begin with the English traveler, John Davis, who came 
to America in 1798 with the intention of exploiting our 
literary resources. In his Travels (1803), he published 
frhe first fictitious version of the Pocahontas story, which 
he twice expanded in later editions. In 1808 James Nelson 
Barker published The Indian Princess, the first American 
treatment of the story. George Washington Parke Custis's 
Pocahontas (1830), was the first dramatic version to be 
written by a Virginian. The amazing vitality of the Smith- 
Pocahontas story is probably due to a certain epic quality 
combined with the sentimental appeal of a tragic love story. 

The first American novelist to introduce Virginian char- 
acters in fiction was Fenimore Cooper. Almost half of the 
leading chraacters in The Spy (1821) are Virginians ; and, 
though none of the scenes are laid on Virginian soil, the 
novel shows that the Virginia character was early recognized 
as distinctly different from that of the Northern States. The 
dashing Captain Jack Lawton is the most lifelike cavalier 
in Virginia fiction. 

In 1824 appeared the first novels which attempt to picture 
\ irginia life. These are the anonymous Tales of an Ameri- 
can Landlord and The I 'alley of Shenandoah, by George 
i ticker. The first is a very dreary religious novel, unim- 
portant except that it betrays the first slight influence of 
Scott, who seems the godfather of so many later Virginian 
novelists. The I 'alley of Shenandoah, however, is a real- 
istic story of considerable merit. It might he called the 
\ irginia Clarissa Harlowe, and it contains a faithful, though 
not very readable, portrait of a decaying planter family. It 



22] VIRGINIA LIFE; IN FICTION 

abounds in elaborate and accurate pictures of Virginia life 
on both sides of the Blue Ridge. Had the author been able 
to incorporate his picture of Virginia life in a better narra- 
tive, he might have written a novel of much literary merit. 

In 1832 appeared the Virginia classic, Swallow Barn, the 
most accurate account of ante-bellum Virginia life. Ken- 
nedy's equipment for writing such a book was ideal, for 
he had not only an intimate knowledge of Virginia life but 
also the perspective of the outside world. Though Kennedy 
shared to a certain extent the Virginian disposition to 
idealize the past, his literary models fortunately were not 
Scott but Irving and Addison. Every one who has writ- 
ten about Kennedy has noted the striking resemblance be- 
tween Swallow Barn and Bracebridge Hall. The charm of 
Virginia life for Kennedy consisted in "The mellow, bland 
and sunny luxuriance of her old-time society — its good fel- 
lowship, its hearty and constitutional companionableness, the 
thriftless gayety of the people, their dogged but amiable in- 
vincibility of opinion, and that overflowing hospitality 
which knew no ebb." The chief defect of the story as a 
picture of Virginia life lies in the fact that, like nearly all 
other novels, it almost entirely ignores all but the higher so- 
cial class. 

It will be noted that up to this time, and even much later, 
Virginians were comparatively slow to exploit the literary 
resources of their state.* Until after the Civil War, if we 
except the two Tuckers, Caruthers, and Cooke, the more 
important novels were written by sympathetic outsiders, 
either Englishmen, like Thackeray and G. P. R. James, or 

*There was, however, more literary activity in the South in 
the early years of the nineteenth century than has been gener- 
ally recognized. A bibliographical study which the writer made 
several years ago shows that between 1800 and 1835 there were 
approximately 1000 publications by Southei n authors. Of these, 
only 217 belong to poetry, drama, and fiction. There were 139 
volumes of verse, 29 of them by anonymous authors ; 44 works of 
fiction; and 34 dramatic publications. By far the greater num- 
ber of authors published only one volume. From 8 to 9 per cent, 
of these publications were by women writers. 



VIRGINIA I.IFK IN FICTION [23 

Americans with Virginia connections, like Kennedy and 
Paulding, who lived in other states. "It is curious to ob- 
serve," says Woodberry, "that what the South afforded to 
general literature, in the main, was given into the hands of 
strangers." 

In 1834 Dr. William Alexander Caruthers, the first in- 
fluential native writer of fiction, published his first novel, 
The Kcntuckian in Nezv York. Much more important, how- 
ever, are his The Cavaliers of Virginia (1834-5) and The 
Knights of the Horse-Shoe (1845). Caruthers was a Vir- 
ginian of the Virginians. Like Cooke, who may be regard- 
ed as his successor, he was a disciple of Scott and he tried , 
to do for his native state what Scott had done for English 
and Scottish history. His are the first important novels 
of Colonial Virginia. The picture which he gives of Vir- 
ginia life is much more highly colored than that of his pre- 
decessors. Like Cooke, though able to write excellent nar- 
rative when he would, he was too fond of the outworn ele- 
ments of European romance which have little counterpart 
in \ irginia life. Caruthers was less successful than either 
Cooper or Simms in adapting Scott's character types and 
plots to his American setting. His Cavalier gentlemen and 
ladies serve well enough in place of their British proto- 
types, but it is not easy to see why he should mar his pic- 
ture of Virginia life with absurd mysteries and melodram- 
atic villains, or distort history as unblushingly as John 
Smith had done. 

The decade (1830-40) in which Caruthers began to 
write marks an important change in Virginia's attitude 
toward the past. It was then, as we have pointed out, that 
she turned her back upon her great Revolutionary states- 
men, who had opposed slavery, and began to rebuild an aris- 
tocratic social order like that which Jefferson had over- 
thrown. Naturally, the later Virginia planters began to 
exalt their supposed Cavalier ancestors, and to create an im- 
aginary Colonial Virginia which had little basis in reality. 
From the time of Caruthers up to the close of the century, 



24] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

with a few notable exceptions such as Beverley Tucker's 
The Partisan Leader (1836), Virginia novelists were in- 
terested in the past rather than in the present. 

The Southern Literary Messenger, which was founded in 
1834 and which lived on somehow until 1864, gave to Vir- 
ginia writers an opportunity which they were somewhat slow 
to take advantage of. Under Poe it became widely known, 
but he found little support in the writers of his own state. 
Poe himself, the greatest writer to whom Virginia has a 
claim, mentions the state of his adoption in only two of his 
stories, A Tale of the Ragged Mountains and The Prema- 
ture Burial. In the former, according to Professor Bliss 
Perry, Poe borrows from Macaulay his description of the 
mountains which he had seen every day for a year while a 
student at the University of Virginia. 

Various causes have been assigned for the comparative 
lack of literary activity in the Old South ; among others, 
the scattered population, the absence of large cities, and the 
almost universal desire for political distinction. The one 
basic cause, it seems clear today, was slavery. With all the 
handicaps usually assigned, but without slavery and the 
plantation system built upon it, the new Virginia has pro- 
duced a body of literature which compares favorably with 
the achievement, in the same period, of any other state in 
die Union. Virginia hardly had a literature until the rise 
of the anti -slavery agitators. After 1835 there could be lit- 
tle vital literary expression in the face of a public opinion 
which began more and more to insist that no one should 
speak of the fundamental basis of society except in terms 
of approval. And in Virginia few things, not connected in 
some vvav with slavery, were worth writing about. It is 
significant that the only description of a slave sale in Vir- 
ginia fiction occurs in The I 'alley of Shenandoah, published 
in 1824. It is no wonder that Poe created an unmoral world 
of his own and that Caruthers and Cooke turned to the past 

*This point is discussed more fully in my article, On "South- 
ern Literature," The Terns Review, October-, 1921. 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [25 

rather than write of the picturesque present which they knew 
and which I 'age was to make famous.* 

The "word)', windy, flowery 'eloquence,' romanticism, 
sentimentality - ' which Mark Twain found surviving in 
Southern writers after the Civil War, he attributes to the in- 
fluence of Scott, whom ihe also blames, by the way, for the 
Civil War itself. In Chapter xlvi of his Life on the Missis- 
sippi he says : "It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman 
in the South a Major or a Colonel, or a General or a Judge, 
before the war ; and it was he, also, that made these gentle- 
men value their bogus decorations.'" In A Virginian I'll 
lage E. S. Nadal, who was born in Virginia, says: "The 
Southern writers, from being unable to be veracious upon 
one subject, seemed to lose the power of veracity regarding 
all subjects. . . . The Southern planter was an English 
squire. They made him a feeble Sir Roger de Coverley, 
and his farm or plantation a rather shabby English manor 
house." "Everything," he continues, "was exaggerated. All 
their geese became swans .... They represented every- 
thing as different from what it was. They did not seem to 
be able to describe even natural objects correctly." 

In the fifties two English novelists, G. P. R. fames and 
Thackeray, each used Virginia as a background in a novel. 
Both James and Thackeray pictured Virginia life most 
sympathetically, but neither fell to any great extent under 
the influence of the Virginia .tradition in fiction, now well 
established. The Old Dominion (1856), written after 
James had been consul at Norfolk, gives a very readable 
and accurate picture of Virginia planter life. In the fol- 
lowing year Thackeray began the serial publication of The 
Virginians (1857-9). Thackeray saw in the old English 
simplicity of Virginia life an appropriate foil to the corrupt 
life of the upper classes in eighteenth century England. 
Thackeray's novel gave Virginia its place as a favorite set^ 
ting in American romantic fiction. In 1863 H. T. Tucker- 
man could write, "Except New England, no portion of our 
country has been more faithfully illustrated as to its seen- 



26] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

ery, domestic life, and social traits, by popular literature, 
Virginia." 
John Esten Cooke*, whose first novel, antedating James 
and Thackeray, was published in 1854, is the connecting link 
between the early and the later Virginian novelists, and un- 
questionably the most influential of them 1 all. "My aim," 
said Cooke, ''has been to paint the Virginia phase of Am- 
erican society, to do for the Old Dominion what Cooper 
has done for the Indians, Simms for the Revolutionary 
drama in South Carolina, Irving for the Dutch Knicker- 
bockers, and Hawthorne for the Puritan life of New Eng- 
land." In The Virginia Comedians (1854) he wrote not 
only his best novel but the best novel written by a Virginian 
before the Civil War. Its setting is one which Cooke has 
made unmistakably his own, the Virginia of the years imme- 
diately preceding the Revolution. To Cooke the Revolu- 
tion was the great epic event of American history, and the 
years immediately preceding it were the Golden Age. In 
his double role of romancer and historian, he has done more 
than any other to popularize the legendary view of Revolu- 
tionary Virginia. His intimate knowledge of historical de- 
tails did not correct his view of colonial life, but only served 
to make his picture of it seem more real to those who read 
him. Not only has he impressed his conception of colonial 
life upon untrained historians like Page and novelists like 
Mary Johnston and Hallie Ermine Rives; he has even in- 
fluenced so well trained a historian as John Fiske, who in 
his Old Virginia and Her Neighbors betrays the influence 
of Cooke's Virginia: A History of the People (1883). 

The Civil War interrupted Cooke's promising literary 
career. After its close he made some use of his experiences 
as a soldier in Surry of Eagle's-Nest (1866) and Mohun 
( 1869). Although he was the first Virginian to exploit this 
rich mine of literary material, he was too old-fashioned and 
himself too much a part of the old regime to make the full- 

*An admirable biography of Cooke by Professor John O. 
Beaty is shortly to be published. 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [27 

est use of its literary possibilities. Shortly before his death 
he wrote: "Mr. Ilowells and the other novelists have 
crowded me out of popular regard as a novelist, and have 
brought the kind of fiction 1 write into general disfavor. I 
do not complain of that, for they are right. They see, as 
T do, that fiction should faithfully reflect life, and they obey 
the law, while I can not. I was born too soon, and am now 
too old to learn my trade anew." To Cooke at all times the 
Virginia of romance was not that which he had seen swept 
away but the Virginia of the Revolution. He continued to 
write colonial romances with the strange result that when 
the revival of the historical romance came in the nineties, 
he was regarded as a pioneer when he had simply never ' 
ceased to be a follower of Scott and Simms. 

To the Virginia novelist romance has always lain not in 
the near-at-hand and the contemporary but in the remote 
past. Just as Cooke and Caruthers glorified the good old 
colonial times, so Thomas Nelson Page idealized the years 
in which they lived as a Golden Age. One recalls what Kip- 
ling says of romance in The King : 

Robed, crowned and throned, he wove his spell, 

Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled, 

With unconsidered miracle, 

Hedged in a backward-gazing world: 

Then taught his chosen bard to say: 

"Our King was with us — yesterday!" 

The Virginia of the old regime found its most memora- 
ble portrayal in the early stories of Thomas Nelson Page. 
It was he who gave the phrase "before the war" the mean- 
ing which it has for later Virginians. His In Ole Virginia 
(1887)' is preeminently the Virginia classic. Although con- 
fessedly owing something to Irwin Russell, and perhaps 
also to Cable, R. M. Johnston, and Joel Chandler Harris, 
Page was clearly one of the pioneers in the use of negro 
dialect in the short story of local color. At the close of the 
war Page was only twelve years old. He saw the old regime 
in his most impressionable years ; and when he had grown 
to manhood, his memories of it were so unconsciously ideal- 



28] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

ized that he cannot see it in any other way even when he 
assumes the role of historian 

Page's success was due not to the accuracy with which 
he portrayed Virginia life but to the fact that, better than 
any one else, he has expressed the spirit of the old South 
which survives in the new. The later South wanted its 
heroes painted, not as provincial tobacco farmers but as 
heroes and Cavaliers. Page is unquestionably sincere in 
believing that his picture of the old regime is an accurate 
one. He has undoubtedly described it as he remembers il : 
but there is just the difference between his Virginia and 
the real Virginia that one expects to find between a paint 
ing and a photograph. Certain details of the old life are 
dropped or barely mentioned; while others are emphasized 
in even' possible manner. For instance, the earlier novelists 
had practically ignored the lower classes : it was left for 
Page to draw his villains from them. In a review of Page's 
The Old Dominion Professor William E. Dodd has said: 
"A note which runs through all Mr. Page has ever written 
is evident here also: the judgment and the language are 
too frequently those of <>ne who supposes character to be 
absolutely determined by status. All heroic characters are 
gentlemen; the villains are outside the charmed circle." Mrs 
L. H. (Cora) Harris has expressed much the same view: 
"The opinion expressed of Thomas Carlyle by one of Page's 
characters, the 'Old Gentleman of the Black Stock,' is char- 
acteristic of the author's own point of view — 'He is not a 
gentleman, sir, and he has never forgiven either the world 
or himself for it !' Xo shrewder comment was ever made 
upon the surly Scotchman, but it also indicates the intol- 
erance and narrowness of an aristocrat's vision. So much 
of life lies beyond it."' 

If we remember Page's limitations, we may agree with 
Professor Edwin Minis in saying that "Hawthorne was not 
better adapted to the delineation of Xew England Puritan- 
ism, or Scott to the setting forth of the age of chivalry, 
than was Mr. Page to the description and interpretation 



VIRGINIA I.IFK IN MICTION [29 

of ante-bellum life." In his first stories Page wrote with 
perfect naturalness of what he remembered, without re- 
sort to the melodramatic machinery of Caruthers, Cooke, 
and Mary Johnston. Some of those early stories, Marse 
Chan, Meh Lady, and The Burial of the Guns, are undoubt- 
edly to be counted among the classics of the American short 
story. Cooke had treated the Civil War as an episode in 
itself, lie was strangely blind to what now seems the ob- 
vious fact that the war marked the end of the old regime 
and the beginning of the new social order. Page was among 
the first to see that the old life was passing away ; and he 
wisely avoided describing the great battles of the war and 
instead pictured the changes in the social life which were 
brought on by war and reconstruction. His Marse Chan and 
Meh Lady begin not with the fall of Fort Sumter, but with 
an idyllic picture of planter life, and they close with a picture 
of planter poverty and desolation. In his stories the \ ir- 
ginia background is a vital thing. 

At the time Page began to write, American writers of 
fiction were still busy exploring the West for local color. 
In a short time the center of interest shifted to the South, 
and Page himself could truthfully say. "After less than a 
generation it [the old South] has become among friends 
and enemies the recognized field of romance." In 1888 
Tourgee wrote, "A foreigner studying our current literature, 
without knowledge of our history, and judging our civiliza- 
tion by our fiction, would undoubtedly conclude that the 
South was the seat of intellectual empire in America, and 
the African the chief romantic element of our population." 

The younger novelists who followed in Page's footsteps 
knew the old regime only through books or the reminiscences 
of older people; but Mrs. Burton Harrison and George Car) 
Kggleston knew it from personal experience. Better than 
.my one else, Mrs. Harrison has described the feminine side 
of ante-bellum life. She reminds one less of Page than of 
Kennedy and, in her melodramatic plots, of Caruthers and 
Cooke. Her English models were Thackeray and Jane Aus- 



30] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

ten. The boys of Flower de Hundred (1890), she says, 
read Sir Walter from the library edition, and pooh-poohed 
Miss Austen as rather a dull old thing, wiho wrote about peo- 
ple you could see by just driving around the country." 
Flozver de Hundred is in some ways a poor novel, but it has 
something of Jane Austen's illuminating humor and of her 
keen criticism of social peculiartiies. Belhaven Tales 
(1892) is a delightful account of old Alexandria somewhat 
in the vein of Cranford. There is no such account of ante- 
bellum urban life anywhere; it deserves recognition as the 
classic complement to In Ole Virginia. Two of the short 
stories in that volume, Crow's Nest and Una and King 
David, are among the best short stories of the Civil War. 

The earliest, the last, and the most voluminous of the 
later novelists of the old regime is George Cary Eggleston. 
A brother of the author of The Hoosier Schoolmaster, he 
was born in Indiana of Virginian parentage. In the late 
fifties he visited his relatives and settled in Richmond to 
practice law. When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in 
the Confederate army and served until the end. While 
editor of Hearth and Home, he wrote his first novel, A Man 
of Honor (1873), for a journalistic emergency, much as 
his brother Edward had written The Hoosier Schoolmaster. 
Nearly thirty years later, after a varied career as a journal- 
ist, he retired and devoted himself to the writing of novels 
of Virginia life. His later novels give a much more highly 
colored picture of the old regime. This is partly due to the 
influence of Page and to the change in the popular attitude, 
but perhaps still more to time and the tricks of an old man's 
memory. One has only to compare his A Man of Honor 
(1873) with his Dorothy South (1902) to see how greatly 
time has colored the picture. In 1910 he wrote that a critic 
had charged him with creating his delightful picture of Vir- 
ginia out of his own imagination "for the entertainment of 
New England readers." Nowhere, however, does Eggles- 
ton show any consciousness of a change in attitude. Of 
the charm which he found in the old Virginia life he wrote 



VIRGINIA UFI-: IN FICTION [31 

in 1903: "To me it was the complete realization of ro 
mance, the actual embodiment of poetry, a dream life of 
exquisite perfection. It was a hundred years behind the 
times, but for that very reason it fascinated my mind as 
nothing else has ever done, before or since. It violated all 
the maxims of prudence that had lain at the basis of my 
education, but I was overjoyed to be rid of the allegiance to 
these. It ran counter to all I had learned of strenuousness, 
but I was weary of strenuousness." 

In structure Eggleston's novels are usually poor. One 
suspects that his old friend Cooke is partly responsible for 
certain melodramatic situations and the conventional villain 
although one cannot blame Cooke for the bad dialogue. No 
later writer, however, throws so much light upon the pecu- 
liar manners and social customs of Old Virginia. His set- 
ting is always delightfully done. This will not make his 
novels live, but it should make them always interesting to 
the reader who wishes to know what a shrewd and kindly 
Western critic thought of old Virginia life. More interest- 
ing than any of his novels is his charming essay in the At- 
lantic Monthly*, The Old Regime in the Old Dominion, 
which Howells had asked him to expand to twice its orig- 
inal length. 

In the late eighties and early nineties, owing partly to 
Cooke's example and partly to the international revival of 
the historical romance, Colonial and Revolutionary Virginia 
again attracted the novelist and began to compete with the 
ante-bellum period in popular interest. Although others 
like Hallie Ermine Rives and Maud Wilder Goodwin en- 
tered this field also, Mary Johnston has made it her own ; 
and though in her later novels she has deserted her first 
field, she is still popularly remembered as the author of 
Prisoners of Hope and To Have and to Hold. Her success 
induced several Northern and Western novelists, notably 
Burton Egbert Stevenson and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, to 
turn to Colonial Virginia for a romantic background. Her 

*Vol. 36, pp. 603-616. 



52] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

success has perhaps also had much, to do with the numerous 
juvenile novels dealing with Virginia history. 

Miss Johnston continues the Caruthers-Cooke tradition. 
I [er plots are quite as sensational as theirs, quite as full of 
mysteries and melodramatic incidents. All three novelists, 
in fact, recall the dime-novel again and again. Her back- 
ground i> unreal, and this in spite of her accurate use of 
many historical details of dress and manners. Her knowl- 
edge of history, like Cooked, serves only to make her unreal 
world seem plausible to the uncritical reader. Everything 
is idealized; even the scenery takes on a tropical richness 
of coloring. Her Virginia is, in Governor Berkeley's lan- 
guage, "the land of good eating, good drinking, stout men, 
and pretty women." Her Virginia is the Utopia of melo- 
dramatic romance. It is essentially inferior to the Arcadian 
land of Thomas Nelson Page. At the same time one must 
give .Miss Johnston credit for her excellences. Her abilitv 
io tell a thrilling story of adventure cannot be denied. Miss 
Johnston possesses the narrative instinct, as Scott, Cooper, 
and Stevenson did. Though few of her characters are of 
real flesh and blood, her types are often well chosen and 
sometimes strikingly portrayed. More than any other Vir- 
ginian novelist, she appreciates the value in fiction of Vir- 
ginian class distinctions. In fact, her plots often turn upon 
the social barrier between classes. Miss Johnston was the 
first novelist after Defoe to see the value of the indentured 
servant as a character in fiction. The hero of her first 
iovel, Prisoners of Hope ( 1898), the best of the three deal 
ing with Colonial Virginia, is a convict who cherishes a 
hopeless love for Patricia, the daughter of the great land- 
!( ;rd who ( >wns him. 

At this point we may mention those British authors who 
since Thackeray's time have written upon Virginian sub- 
jects. Arthur Granville Bradley's Sketches from Old Vir- 
ginia (1897) and Other Hays (1913), though not to be 
classed as fiction, give a unique picture of Virginia life in 
the Reconstruction period, sympathetic but markedly at 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [33 

variance with the picture found in Page's Red Rock (1898). 
Bradley was one of a number of Englishmen who after the 
Civil War bought Virginia estates and tried to live like Eng- 
lish country gentlemen. Few of them succeeded in restoring 
the worn-out soil to fertility, and Bradley after about ten 
years left Virginia. A comparison of Bradley's Marse Dab 
with Dr. Cary of Red Rock reveals the extent to Which Page 
has idealized the old Virginia gentleman. Even in the twen- 
tieth century two British novelists have been attracted to 
Colonial Virginia. John Masefield's two stories of Virginia 
and the sea, Lost Endeavor (1910) and Captain Margaret 
(1916), faintly recall the Virginia of Defoe. The hero of 
Lost Endeavour is, like Colonel Jack, kidnapped and sold 
as an indentured servant to Virginia. In both novels Virginia 
is no more than a half-way station on the route to the Span- 
ish Main. The Virginia background in both novels is ex- 
tremely hazy and, wherever definitely described, usually in- 
accurate. For instance, the Virginians, Masefield tells us in 

Captain Margaret, "had no wines They did not play 

cards. They would often ride forty miles to a prayer meet- 
ing in a wood." The Scottish novelist, John Buchan, at 
tracted by the romantic background of Mary Johnston, has 
written in Salute to Adventurers (1917) one of the most 
readable romances of Colonial Virginia. 

About 1900 we note the beginnings of a gradual changt 
in the trend of Virginia fiction so marked as to be de- 
scribed as revolutionary. A literary revolution we may 
well call it, for it freed the Virginia novelist from the ty- 
rannical spell of a legendary past, and it introduced into 
Virginia fiction a democratic note which had rarely been 
found there before. In other words, since 1900 "Southern" 
literature has for the first time become genuinely American. 
The twentieth century has witnessed the rise of a number of 
Virginia novelists. Ellen Glasgow, James Branch Cabell, 
Henry Sydnor Harrison, and others, who have turned their 
backs squarely upon the time-hallowed traditions of their 
section. More significant still is the fact that older writers, 



34] VIRGINIA LIFK IN FICTION 

like Thomas Nelson Page and Mary Johnston, have ex- 
ecuted what we may call a literary about-face. Page's John 
Marvel, Assistant and Miss Johnston's Hagar do not belong 
to the same world as his earlier In Ole Virginia and her 
To Have and To Hold. 

This marked change in the character of Virginia fiction, 
which began in 1897 with Miss Glasgow's first novel, The 
Descendant, was the tardy but inevitable consequence of the 
profound changes which the Civil War wrought in Virginia 
life. The years following the war witnessed the gradual 
disintegration of the old aristocratic order and the rise of the 
lower classes which slavery had kept in a subordinate posi- 
tion. The new social life of Virginia rests upon exactly the 
e economic basis as the social life of the North and 
West : but for a quarter of a century after the war there was 
larked discrepancy between the ideal and the actual life 
- irginia. The new South was democratic, and it was 
rapidly becoming industrial; but it still professed undying 
allegiance to the semi-feudal old South, which it revered 
without fully understanding. The virtues of the new 
h were American, Northern rather than Southern. Its 
progressive farmers and business men were long in realiz- 
ing that it is altogether impossible to follow the old South- 
ern gentleman's code of living in an alien economic dispen- 
sation. The South, in genuinely Quixotic fashion, professed 
one ideal and followed another. It was probably the war 
with Spain that caused the South first to suspect that it was 
worshiping an obsolete ideal. It has been nice that 

time that speech and press have been sufficiently free to per- 
>ni Southern writers like Miss Glasgow to attack outworn 
/deals without the certainty of the social ostracism which be- 
fell Mr. Cable in Louisiana. 

In choosing hero of her first novel an illegitimate 

white who leaves Virginia to escape the odium attached 

birth and class, Miss Glasgow deliberately violated 

erary tradition. She chose to write of the present 

' at »ei f the romantic past; and later when she por- 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [35 

■ : rayed the old Virginia gentleman, she took off his halo 
and pictured him as a human being. She was the first to 
see that certain social classes had been almost entirely ig- 
nored by her predecessors. She was, in short, the first Vir- 
ginia novelist to attain a genuinely naltional outlook upon 
the life of her state, the first Virginia novelist with a demo- 
cratic attitude toward life. 

The Deliverance (1904), perhaps Miss Glasgow's best 
novel, deals with the same period as Page's Red Rock 
( 1898) ; but in spite of the fairly close resemblance between 
the two novels in plot, her book in spirit and purpose dif- 
fers profoundly from his. Page treats the old planters as 
heroic martyrs robbed of all they hold dear by rascally car- 
pet-baggers and scalawags. His novel is a special plea, al- 
most a piece of propaganda; and his characters are either 
melodramatic villains or romantic abstractions. It is not the 
overseer's theft of the master's plantation that interests Miss 
Glasgow but the consequences of that act upon the two fam- 
ilies. Can any one imagine Page as representing an over- 
seer's granddaughter as a lady who marries a scion of one of 
the First Families of Virginia? 

It was in her third novel, The I 'oice of the People 
(1900), that Miss Glasgow found herself and gave to Vir- 
ginia fiction the first important novel of the new type. 
Earlier novelists had practically ignored the poor whites. 
She saw ithat the war had made Virginia society so demo- 
cratic that even the lowest might hope some day to sit, like 
Nick Burr, in the governor's chair. Miss Glasgow returned 
to the theme of The Voice of the People in The Romance 
of a Plain Man (1909) and The Miller of Old Church 
(1911). The poor white farmers in The Miller of Old 
Church are better done than those in The Voice of the 
People; but The Romance of a Plain Man, a story of big 
business in Richmond, is the best of the three novels. In this 
story Ben Starr, the most lifelike of her poor white heroes, 
marries into the class above him only to find that, though 
his financial success has admitted him to the best social 



36] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

circle, there is much which he has still to learn from his wife 
and her class. 

Miss Glasgow's Virginia (1913) and Life and Gabriella 
(1916) represent still another type of novel. These two 
stories and Mary Johnston's Hagar ( 1913) mark an em 
phatic revolt against the ideals of the ante-helium Virginia 
lady. Gabriella and Hagar are Virginian women of the 
new type ; Virginia, who is a failure in the new social order, 
represents the vanishing type. Miss Johnston's description 
of the boarding school to which Hagar is sent by her grand- 
parents is a satiric gem : "No one could be so cross-grained 
as to deny that Eglantine was a sweet place. It lay sweet- 
ly on just the right, softly swelling hill. The old grey stucco 
main house had a sweet porch, with wistaria growing sweet- 
ly over it ; the long, added grey-stucco wings had pink and 
white roses growing sweetly on trellises between the win- 
dows. ... It was a sweet place. Every one said so — par- 
ents and guardians, the town that neighboured Eglantine, 
tourists that drove by, visitors to the commencement exer- 
cises — everybody ! The girls themselves said so. It was 
praised of all — almost all. The place was sweet. M. Morel, 
the French teacher, who was always improving his English, 
and so on the hunt for synonyms, once said in company thai 
it was saccharine." Hagar, however, is "a wilful piece." 
She becomes an author and a radical with all the new idea 1 - 
Which her grandparents cannot abide. She is, in fact, the 
very antithesis of the old Virginia lady of Morse Chan and 
Red Rock. 

Perhaps the most scathing attack on Virginian conservatism 
and worship of the past has been written by James Branch 
Cabell in The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck (1915). One of 
his Virginia characters says: "Here, you know, we have the 
best blood in America, and — for utilitarian purposes — thai 
means the worst blood. Ah, we may prate of our superioriiv 
to the rest of the world, — and God knows, we do! — but. at 
bottom, we are worthless. We are worn out, I tell you ! we 
are effete and stunted in brain and will-power, and the very 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [37 

desire of life is gone out of us! We are contented simply to 
exist in Lichfield." " 'A hamlet of Hamlets,' was Patricia's 
verdict as to Lichfield — 'whose actual tragedy isn't that their 
fathers were badly treated, but that they themselves are con- 
stitutionally unable to do anything except talk about how 
badly their fathers were treated.' " 

That Thomas Nelson Page should ever write such a novel 
as John Marvel, Assistant (1909) would have been incredi- 
ble to any one two decades ago ; and it shows better than any 
other novel the extent of the change which has come over 
Virginia fiction. A reviewer of his Gordon Keith (1903) 
wrote: "The romantic details of plantation monarchies and 
other features of the old South are no longer interestering 
material . . . . it is time the South buried her dead and 
dealt more exclusively with her living heroes, lest the world 
should conclude there are none worthy of her past glories." 
Mrs. Corra Harris wrote in 1907: "A country or a section 
may change so suddenly in its character and ambitions that 
an author w r ho once portrayed the life of it can do so no 
longer. . . . Now, something has happened in the South 
during the last ten years so radical and so overwhelming that 
what was true is now history, what was characteristic has be- 
come bombastic, and w'hat were principles of living are mere 
sentimentalities connected with the code duello existence of 
the past. . . . the South has outgrown Mr. Page." 

Page's literary career, however, displays an unexpected 
determination to keep pace with the progress of American 
thought and literary endeavor. That he has not been alto- 
gether successful is due less to a lack of adaptability on his 
part than to the amazing rapidity of the changes in Virginian 
ideals of life and of fiction. In John Marvel, :ssisto:it, ;i- in 
Mary Johnston's Hagar and The Long Roll, we note the ab- 
sence of nearly everything which we had come to regard as 
characteristic of the autlx>r. Page, like Miss Johnston, has 
done with fair success the one thing which no one thought it 
possible for him to do. Not only are practically ail the old 
character types gone, but the old Virginia class consciousne--> 



38] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

is gone, too; and in its place we find the social sympathies of 
the reformer. In Henry Glave, the hero, Page describes the 
change through which he himself seems to have gone. Like 
Gordon Keith, Glave is the son of a gentleman, but he has 
even at the outset a certain contempt for his father's "inade- 
quacy to the new state of things." Glave's failure in college 
and in his first business venture is due to the fact that he is 
so well satisfied with the achievements of his ancestors that 
he feels no need to add any of his own. He goes West, and 
after a very hard struggle with poverty, which gives him his 
new social sympathies, he works his way up. At the close of 
the story he is a thorough American with almost nothing of 
the Virginia aristocrat left in his ideals. The secondary he- 
roes are a middle-class minister and a Jewish radical, who 
expounds a doctrine that seems as unlike the earlier Page as 
anything imaginable: "There is no established order. It is 
always upset in time, either for good or ill. It never abides, 
for change is the law." 

One who reads in chronological order the novels by North- 
ern writers Who touch the later Virginia will note in them a 
change almost the very reverse of that which we have just 
described in the Virginia authors. The earlier Northern 
writers, like Lydia Wood Baldwin, Frank R. Stockton, and 
Edmund Pendleton, saw Virginia with their own eyes or 
through the medium of Northern prejudice ; the later North- 
ern writers are, curiously enough, among the last to keep 
alive the old Virginia tradition. In Big Trcmainc (1914) 
Miss Marie Van Vorst describes as contemporary wha : s 
really ante-bellum social life. The old planter families are 
represented as still living on their estates; little is altere 1 
except that the negroes are free. Doubtless there are people 
at the North who imagine that preseit-day Virginia is the 
Arcadia that is described in Big Tremaine. All the old types 
are here — the old Virginia gentleman, the old-fashioned lady, 
the old-school lawyer, the negro mammy. The run of John 
Taintor Foote's comedy, Toby's Bow, at the Comedy The- 
ater during the season of 1918-19 — and in the moving picture 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [39 

theaters since that time — shows that the traditional picture 
of Virginia still possesses a charm for Northern audiences. 
Here the sweetness, simplicity, and purity of the traditional 
Virginia arc set over against the vices of New York's Bo- 
hemia. A New York novelist, whom dissipation is fast rob- 
bing of his lilerary powers, goes to Virginia and falls in love 
with a pure and sweet Virginia girl. The heroine, except for 
her literary aspirations, belongs to the same type as Miss 
Glasgow's Virginia Pendleton. Here we find again the old 
"mansion" which has been in the family for two hundred 
years, the faithful old darky, a type which has been practi- 
cally extinct, on I side of fiction, for a quarter of a century, 
and the old grandmother who knows nothing of business and 
has no idea that her estate is about to be sold for debt. She 
is an anachronism. Though the scene is laid in modern pro- 
hibition Virginia, the old lady, like the playwright perhaps, 
still unaware of this fact, insists that wine be served on the 
table no matter if all the guests are total abstainers. But 
Hallie Erminie Rives's The Valiants of Virginia (1912) re- 
minds us that a native novelist can also help perpetuate the 
legend that the old planter life survives unchanged in the 
country districts of Virginia. As James Branch Cabell has 
put it, "The vitality of the legend is wonderful." 

The history of Virginia fiction, like the history of Vir- 
ginia life, exhibits at every point the clash of aristocratic or 
conservative and democratic or radical tendencies. In each 
case we find at first the aristocratic forces everywhere tri- 
umphant, but in the period following the war we see the 
democratic forces gradually gaining the ascendancy. The 
spirit of the novelists has been a faithful reflection of the 
spirit of the social life. It does not follow, however, that 
the fiction has mirrored faithfully the life of the people. 
Whether or not we agree with Brander Matthews that the 
historical novel can never be anything but "an inferior form 
of art," there is no mistaking the conclusion that it has done 
much to keep alive certain popular legends that might per- 
haps better have been left to die. Whether or not Virginia 



4 



40] VIRGINIA I.IFK IN FICTION 

fiction has been the gainer for the tradition upon which it is 
built will be decided by each reader according to his predilec- 
tions in novels, [f he be a realist, he will say that Virginia 
fiction has given us, on the whole, anything but a faithful 
* reflection of Virginia life. If, however, his taste runs to 
romance, he will contend, as did Simms, that obscurity and 
the glamor of legend are necessary before a great novel can 
b( made out of the history of any state or country. 

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, Virginia felt 
>0 strongly her entity as a state — a nation, one might almost 
say — thai it has been possible to study her literature without 
rmch attention to the literature of the rest of the country. 
This will not be true in the future. The time is past when 
a novelist can write merely for a Virginian or even a South- 
ern audience. The literary future oi Virginia is indissolubly 
bound up with that of the nation. Virginia should be one of 
the richest fields in American fiction for a long time to come. 
No state has a richer historical background or greater indi- 
vidual charm. The novelist of the future Virginia will, it 
seems fair to guess, pay less attention to the past and more 
to the present, if the heroic and idyllic epochs are forever 

>t, he can still console himself with the Virginia poet, 

njamin Sledd, wh<> sing.-: 

Dear land of many -treams and mighty hill>. 

And dear wherever glory lives, thy name, 

Though latter years may link it with their shame . . . 

Why should we weep 
O'er glory past? Still stands — shall ever stand — 
I'nchanged, unchangeable, each mighty steep, 
And vale and stream their olden beauty keep- 
Sure witnesses from their creator's hand 
Of favoring love to thee, my own dear land. 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [41 



CHAPTER TWO 



COLONIAL VIRGINIA 

[. Virginia in Elizabethan Poetry and Drama. — Although 
the number of allusions to Virginia is considerable, in 
only two or three instances does Virginia play a notable 
part in any Elizabethan poem or play. Smith's works 
contain thirty poems from friendly poets, including 
Wither, Donne, and John Davies of Hereford. Spenser 
twice refers to Virginia. Daniel and Drayton allude to 
Virginia most frequently. Virginia plays a part in two 
masques, the unimportant Maske of Flowers and The 
. Memorable Maske of .... the Middle Temple and 
Lyncohs lime, written by Chapman and staged by Inigo 
Jones. 

In the regular drama Virginia had a bad reputation. 
Illustrative quotations from Massinger: The City 
Madam (V, i), Fletcher : The Noble Gentleman ( V, Hi), 
etc. The brilliant comedy, Eastward Hoe (1605), by 
Chapman, Jonson, and Marston, satirizes the Virginian 
emigrants, whose character is indicated by the names 
Flash, Seagull, Spendall, and Scapethrift. Shakespeare's 
The Tempest was partly inspired by the story of the 
wreck of the Sea Venture in the Bermudas while on her 
way to Virginia. 

II. Captain John Smith and the Princess Pocahontas. — There 
is an epic quality about the story of the founding of 
Jamestown which helps to explain its wide popularity 
as a theme among poets, dramatists, and novelists. Like 
Aeneas. Smith is regarded as the founder of a new 
nation and the embodiment of Virginian qualities, the 
ideal Cavalier. Pocahontas's role is that of protecting 
deity to the infant colony. Her supposedly tragic love 
story adds romantic charm. 

Rver since 1859 historians have violently disagreed as 



42] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

to Smith's reliability as historian of the colony. The 
weight of authority, however, is now decidedly against 
Smith. He was a partisan of James f, and treated un- 
fairly the liberal Virginia Company, which gave the 
colony its right to self-government. The story of the 
rescue rests solely upon Smith's own testimony and is 
probably untrue. 

The English literary traveler, John Davis, who spent 
some time in Virginia tutoring the children of wealthy 
planters, introduced the Smith-Pocahontas story into 
fiction in 1803. This short story he expanded in 1805 
into a novelette and finally in 1806 into a historical ro- 
mance, The First Sailers iff Virginia. Davis's first ver- 
sion is his besl ; the final version is overweighted with 
historical material, much of which is copied almost ver- 
batim from Robertson and Belknap. The Pocahontas 
story does nut lend itself readily to treatment in the 
novel or the play. The most dramatic incident, the res- 
cue, comes too early ; and Pocahontas marries the un- 
romantic Rolfe while neither she nor Smith dies of a 
broken heart. 

Most of the Pocahontas poems and plays were writ- 
ten before the Civil War; most of the novels, many of 
them suggested by the Jamestown Tercentennial of 1907, 
belong to the later period. The chief plays are Barker: 
The Indian Princess ( 1808) , Custis : Pocahontas ( 1830) , 
Robert Dale Owen: Pocahontas (1837), Margaret Ull- 
mann: Pocahontas: a Pageant (1912), and two bur- 
lesques, John Brougham : Po-ca-hon-las; or, The Gentle 
Savage (1855), and Philip Moeller : Pokey (1818). The 
chief Pocahontas poems are Mary Webster Mosby : Po- 
cahontas (1840), William Watson Waldron: Pocahon- 
tas (1841), Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney: Pocahontas 
(1841), Seba Smith: Powhatan (1841). Briefer poems 
of better quality are Thackeray's Pocahontas, Mrs. Mar- 
garet Junkin Preston's Last Meeting of Pocahontas and 
the Great Captain, and Vachel Lindsay's war poem, 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [43 

Our Mother Pocahontas. The best novels are Cooke : 
My Lady Pokahontas (1885) and Vaughan Kester : 
John o' Jamestown (1907). See bibliography for other 
titles. No literary treatment of the Pocahontas story be- 
trays the slightest suspicion that Smith's account is open 
to question. The vitality of the legend is amazing. 

III. The Cavalier and the Indentured Servant. — The novels 
which deal with later Colonial Virginia represent two 
well defined traditions : the English, dealing with the 
indentured servant, and the Virginian, portraying the 
Cavalier. The number of Cavaliers who settled in Vir- 
ginia has been enormously exaggerated. Bruce finds 
only forty-three families with the right to a coat-of- 
arms. "The aristocratic character of Virginia society," 
says Wertenbaker in Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia, 
"was the result of development within the colony. It 
proceeded from economic, political and social causes. 
On its economic side it was built up by the system of 
large plantations, by the necessity for indentured or 
slave labor, by the direct trade with England ; politically 
it was engendered by the lack of a vigorous middle class 
in the first half of the 17th century, and was sustained 
by the method of appointment to office ; on its social side 
it was fostered by the increasing wealth of the planters 
and by the ideal of the English gentleman." Quotations 
from historians arranged chronologically show a steady 
growth in the number of Cavaliers estimated to have 
settled in Virginia while the number of indentured 
servants proportionately declines. 

IV. The English Tradition : Mrs. Behn and Defoe. — Mrs. 
Behn's play, The Widozv Ranter, acted in 1690, is a 
curious mixture of comedy, tragedy, and romance, con- 
taining much satire on colonial self-government. Its 
historical hero, Nathaniel Bacon, is in love with the 
Indian queen, Semernia. 

Defoe's favorite solution of the pauper and criminal 



14] VIRGINIA I, IFF. IN FICTION 

problem was colonization, but the story of Moll Flanders 
I 1722) gives a poor illustration of his scheme. In Colonel 
Jacque, published later in the same year, Defoe, choosing 
a man as his leading character, shows more successfully 
how a convict could rehabilitate himself in Virginia. 
Defoe also pleads for a humaner treatment of negro 
slaves. His novels give lis our best account of the white 
slaves of Virginia. 

> . The Virginian Tradition: Caruthers and Mary Johnston. 
— Caruthers, author of The Cavaliers of Virginia 
(1834-5), and Mar}- Johnston have written the most 
important and influential novels dealing with Colonial 
Virginia. Discussion of Caruthers' s novels. Miss John- 
ston continues the Caruthers-Cooke tradition and re- 
introduces the indentured servant into fiction. Discus- 
sion of Prisoners of Hope ( 1898). 

VI. Other Xoi'elisls of Colonial Virginia. — Bacon's Rebel 
lion the subject of a number of novels. I [istorical events 
which play no part in fiction. Prevost: Le Philosophe 
Anglais (1728-39). Mary Wilkins Freeman: The 
Heart's Highway (1900). John Masefield: Lost En- 
deavour (1910) and Captain Margaret (1 ( >16). John 
Buchan : Salute to Adventurers ( 1917). 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [45 



CHAPTER THREE 

THE REVOLUTION 

I. Introduction. — "The Revolution furnished the epic 

American history," says Professor Shotwell. Historians 
and other writers have greatly idealized the struggle for 
independence. This, according to Sydney George Fisher, 
explains the poor quality of the fiction dealing with the 
Revolution. There is no inspiration in "a scholastic. 
academic revolution that never happened and thai i- 
barren of all traits of human nature." 

II. {'.conic Washington. — No American has been more th< 

victim of legend and misunderstanding than Washing 
ton. It seem.-., however, that other biographies than 
that of Weems are responsible for the priggish perfec- 
tion that represents Washington in fiction. In The Vir- 
ginians Thackeray apparently did his best to discover 
the true George Washington, with sufficient success to 
offend Americans of his time. Other novels in which 
Washington plays a part arc of no great importance 

III. Other Historical Characters. — Nearly every prominent 
Virginian of Revolutionary times is the subject of 
legend and misconception. The novelists always pre- 
serve such traditions, seldom using the best historical 
sources available. Lord Fairfax's intimacy with Wash- 
ington has been greatly exaggerated. Wirt's life of 
Patrick Henry launched the legend of a great idle, igno- 
rant genius and has influenced all fictitious portraits of 
Henry, including that of Cooke in The Virginia Co- 
medians. Jeffersonian "'simplicity." The Indian chief 
Logan. Governor Dunmore. 

IV. Mistaken Notions of Virginia Life. — Colonial social 
strata were many and not so fixed as is generally sup- 
posed. The frontier democracy, from which Henry 



46] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

sprang, has been greatly neglected in history and fiction, 
The Scotch-Irish and German settlers of the Valley of 
Virginia. 

V. The Planter Aristocracy. — All other classes have been 

overshadowed by the planters. They entered the war 
unwillingly and did not supply the great leaders. Wom- 
en. Other classes. 

VI. Cooper: "The Spy." — Cooper's conception of the Vir- 
ginia character. Captain Jack Lawton. 

VII. John Esten Cooke. — Cooke's life and conception of 
fiction. Cooke's historical portrait of Virginia is as 
charming and as erroneous as that of his novels. Dis- 
cussion of The Virginia Comedians. 

VIII. Thackeray : "The Virginians." — It has been erroneous- 
ly assumed that Thackeray knew little or nothing about 
Virginia and that his novel has very little to do with 
Virginia. Genesis of the novel. Thackeray's impres- 
sions of Virginia were very favorable. He received 
some assistance from John R. Thompson, Kennedy, and 
William Bradford Reed. Cooke's interview with Thack- 
eray (Appleton's Journal, n. s., 7:248-254). Did Ken- 
nedy write any of The I 'irginiansf Almost certainly 
not, although Thackeray clearly asked him to do so. 
John H. B. Latrobe is responsible for the legend that 
Kennedy wrote the fourth chapter of the second vol- 
ume. From Graydon's Memoirs, which Kennedy lent 
him, Thackeray got the story of Maria's marriage to 
Hagan. Thackeray's account of the Lamberts also owes 
something to Reed's Life of Esther De Berdt. Mrs. 
Burton Harrison believes (see The Bookman, 1:166) 
that from Reed Thackeray learned many details of the 
relations of aristocratic Virginia families, like the Fair- 
faxes and Carys, to their English cousins. Thackeray's 
library contained a number of books dealing with Vir- 
ginia and the Revolution. 

71ie Virginians is a poorly constructed novel. Tback- 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [47 

eray was interested in Colonial Virginia as a part of 
Virginia life as a foil to the corrupt life of the English 
eighteenth century England, which he loved. He uses 
nobility. Harry Warrington is Virginian to the core. 
The first volume gives this young Virginian's reaction to 
English society life. Thackeray's picture of life in Vir- 
ginia is sketchy but surprisingly accurate. He did not 
fall under the influence of the Virginian tradition to any 
great extent. The direct influence of the novel has been 
small, but it did more than any other book to give 
Virginia its place as a classic background in American 
fiction. 



48j VIRGINIA LIFT IN FICTION 



CHAPTER FOUR 

THF. OLD REGIME 

J. Historical Introduction. — While the Revolution made Vir- 
ginia more democratic, ii ruined most of the planter.-, 
whose divided estates fell into the hands of men oi 
lower standing. A stream of emigration to the Wesi 
set in which has hardly yet ceased. The Virginian emi- 
grant as pictured in fiction. In the thirties slavery. 
which had seemed to be dying out, again became profit 
able. Slaves were sold to the lower South at the rate 
of 6,000 a year. The Southern reaction against democ- 
racy was due to the growth of the lower South, not to 
the influence of Scott, as has often been said. Rebuild 
ing of the aristocratic social order. 

II. The Novelists. — See Chapter One for a brief account of 

Kennedy, G. P. R. James, George Cary Eggeston, Mrs. 
Burton Harrison, and Thomas Nelson Page. 

III. Mistaken Notions of Virginia Life. — Misconceptions of 
life in ante-bellum Virginia are due parti) to the Aboli 
tionists, partly to post-bellum Virginia idealization oi 
the old regime by Virginians. The Virginians were not 
dissipated or irreligious. The charm of Virginia life 
lay in its simplicity, kindliness, hospitality, and freedom 
from convention. Virginian conservatism and hatred of 
isms of all kinds. 

IV. Virginia and New England. — The provincial Virginian 
and the provincial New Englander cherished many false 
notions of each other. New England peddlers and over- 
seers. The few intelligent Virginians, like William Wirt 
and Lucian Minor, who visited New England were 
amazed to find that Yankees could be kind and hospi- 
table. William Ellery Channing and Bronson Alcott 
were delighted with the Virginia character and mode of 
living. 



VIRGINIA LIFE l\ PICTION- |49 

V. The Old Virginia Gentleman.— The Virginia gentleman 

was the inevitable product of the tobacco plantation sys- 
tem based upon slavery. This explains his ability to 
lead, his hospitality, generosity, and provincialism. 
Planter types in fiction. The planter's sons. Odd types. 

VI. The Virginia Lady.— Virginia women were not modern, 
not intellectual, but conservative, and thoroughly femi- 
nine. The belle was an institution. Chivalric regard 
for women. The matron, the keystone of the whole 
economic system, was badly overworked. Tin- "un- 
attached female" was extremely conservative. Eg- 
gleston's old maids. 

VII. The Slave.— In Virginia slavery was attended with 
fewer abuses than in the Gulf states; it was a genuinely 
patriarchal institution. The Abolitionist legend of 
slavery. The idealized portrait of Page. Social dis- 
tinctions among slaves were very marked. Slave types 
in fiction. The literary use of negro dialect. 

VIII. The Lower Classes.— The middle-class farmers out- 
numbered the planters twenty or thirty to one. Their 
character. The poo,- whites. The Hoosier is a poor 
white type. The overseer. The part of all these types 
in fiction is very small. 

[X. Western Virginia.— Apart from a few pages i„ Beverley 
Tucker's The Partisan Leader, only Eggleston's novels 
deal with the Virginia mountaineer. Irene of the VIoun 
tains (1909) and Westover of Wanalah ( 1910). 



50] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 



CHAPTER FIVE 

THE CIVIL WAR 

J. Historical Introduction. — There has been some misconcep- 
tion as to Virginia's part in the Civil War. Virginia was 
very reluctant to secede, and yet her soil was the chief 
battle-ground ; in this she resembles Belgium. Virginians 
fought more wholeheartedly than in the Revolution. In 
Virginia the war is still a reality, not a mere matter of 
history. Post-bellum idealization of the four epic years. 
Until after 1900 no one was permitted to tell the whole 
truth about the causes of the war. 

II. The Virginia Generals. — Virginia furnished half the great 

military leaders of the Confederacy : the Lees, Jackson, 
Joseph E. Johnston, "Jeb" Stuart, A. P. Hill, Ewell, 
Pickett, and Ashby, — not to mention Scott and Thomas 
on the Union side. Lee and Jackson were the chief 
Southern heroes. Jackson was not typically Virginian ; 
ilie was too much the Puritan and too little the Cavalier. 
Lee much more completely embodied the Southern 
ideal. He was, however, rather what the Virginian ad- 
mired than what he was. To a certain extent, Lee has 
been idealized, like Washington, into a priggish abstrac- 
tion. Lee and Jackson as portrayed in Cooke's novels. 
Turner Ashby, "tie Knight of the Valley," and "Jeb'" 
Stuart best represent the romantic Cavalier type. Por- 
traits of Ashby and Stuart in Cooke's Surry of Eagle's- 
Nest and Eggleston's The Master of Warlock. 

III. The Novelists. — Even more than the Revolution, the 
Civil War has furnished the epic of American history — 
at least for Virginia. Whitman wrote : "A great litera- 
ture will yet arise out of the era of those four years. 
.... far more grand, in my opinion, to the hands 
capable of it than Homer's siege of Troy, or the French 
wars to Shakespeare." Great variety of the war novels. 



VIRGINIA UFE IN FICTION [51 

Few stand out, although the average of excellence is 
high. Two novels which predict a civil war : Beverley 
Tucker: The Partisan Leader (1836) and John Beau- 
champ Jones: Wild Southern Scenes (1859). Cooke's 
war novels are disappointing; his battle scenes and his- 
torical portraits are excellent, but Cooke's type of fiction 
was too archaic to mirror the wartime life as a whole 
Cooke, however, was the first to use many situations, 
such as the family divided by the war and the Northern 
soldier in love with the Virginia girl, which later nov- 
elists employ. While Cooke treated the war as an episode 
complete in itself, Page was the first to place his war 
scenes against a background of idyllic planter life be- 
fore the war and a background of planter poverty and 
desolation following the war. Page pays more attention 
to home life and less to battles than Cooke. Excellence 
of the short stories in his In Old Virginia (1887). Mrs. 
Burton Harrison's Crozi/s Nest and Una and King 
David are two of the best short stories of the Civil War. 
Of the many novels by Northern writers which describe 
the war in Virginia the best is Albert Elmer Hancock's 
Henry Bourland (1901). After 1900 Virginian novelists 
begin to break with the romantic tradition and to de- 
scribe the war as it actually happened. Ellen Glasgow's 
The Battle Ground (1902) and Lucy Meacham Thrus- 
ton's Called to the Field ( 1906) foreshadow The Long 
Roll (1911) and Cease Firing (1912) of Mary John- 
ston, who has most successfully described the war. 
Whitman had said, "The real war will never get in the 
books ;" but she has very nearly succeeded. Forgotten 
details of the Civil War in the light of the War with 
Germany: hysteria, spies, "slackers," profiteers, intol- 
erance, hatred, "strategic retreats," etc. 

IV. Wartime Life in Virginia.— The Virginia planters made 
excellent cavalrymen. The proportion of gentlemen 
among the soldiers has been much exaggerated. The 
part of the women is not adequately depicted by the 



52] VIRGINIA UF£ IN FICTION 

novelists. The slaves. The poor whites are best de- 
scribed in Miss Glasgow's The Battle Ground and 
Page's Little Darby. 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [53 



CHAPTER SJX 

MODERN VIRGINIA 

I. Decay of the Planter Families. — Unprecedented waste and 

desolation were the aftermath of the war in Virginia. 
The planters were unable to adjust themselves to new 
methods of farming necessitated by emancipation. Their 
failure was seldom due to the rascality of overseer-, as 
Page's novels suggest. Bradley's Sketches From Old 
Virginia ilXV>7) gives a more accurate picture of the 
planters than Page's Red Rock ( 18 ( J8). Marse Dab and 
Dr. Cary. -Many estates and homes abandoned to de- 
cay. Thomas Dabney as a type of the Virginian plan- 
ter. Modern Virginian conservatism is due to emigra- 
tion of the enterprising element and also perhaps in part 
to the effect of the war upon the racial stock. 

II. The Reconstruction. — The Reconstruction period in Vir- 

ginia was attended by few abuses like those in Louisiana 
and South Carolina, but Page and other novelists make 
no distinction between Virginia and these states. The 
carpet-bagger and the scalawag, however, left Virginia 
politics in a very corrupt condition. 

J II. The Rise of the Lower Classes. — While practically all 
the great planters failed, t he small farmers managed to 
hold their own. Practically all the planters went West or 
North or to Virginia cities. Rural Virginia is as demo- 
cratic as the rural West. Virginia social life has under- 
gone a revolution since the war, and it now rests on the 
same economic basis as life in other state.-. Wealth is 
now more important than birth. 

IV. A Literary Revolution. — (See Chapter One.) Under 
the old regime Virginia left her books to be written by 
outsiders ; since the war native Virginians have written 
nearly all the novels describing Virginia. Emancipation 



54] VIRGINIA IJFR IN FICTION 

rendered speech and press comparatively free. Great va- 
riety of the novels ; every possible type represented. 
About 1900 a marked change in the tone of the novelists 
begins. Page tries to keep pace with the change. In Red 
Rock (1898) and Gordon Keith (1903) he turns from 
earlier periods to Reconstruction Virginia, and in John 
Marvel, Assistant (1909) to contemporary life, aban- 
doning his stock characters and situations entirely. Ellen 
Glasgow as an example of the new type of fiction. Dis- 
cussion of her novels. Mary Johnston's Hagar (1913). 
fames Branch Cabell's The Rivet in Grandfather's 
'Neck (1915). 

V. Northern Novelists. — The Northern novelists, at first hos- 

tile, become the preservers of the Virginia tradition. 

VI. Virginia and New York. — The modern novelists are un- 
able to keep away from New York, no matter where 
they start. Few effective contrasts in fiction of New 
York and Virginia except in F. Hopkinson Smith's 
Colonel Carter of Cartersznlle (1891) and Colonel Car- 
ter's Christmas (1903). Colonel Carter is an anachron- 
ism, the old Virginia gentleman unchanged by war and 
Reconstruction, a caricature, like a character out of 
Dickens. 

VII. Conclusion. — The novelists do not successfully portray 
the new type of negro. John Fox and the Virginia and 
Kentucky mountaineers. Joseph Hergesheimer's Moun- 
tain Blood (1915). (See conclusion to Chapter One.) 



VIRGINIA IJl'K IN FICTION [55 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The following list of works of fiction is as complete as I 
have been able to make it. So many titles have been discov- 
ered by accident, ihowever, that I feel certain that a consid- 
erable number have escaped me. The place of publication is 
usually omitted except in the case of books published before 
the Civil War. In every instance in which a novel is included 
which I have not seen, the title is marked with an asterisk, 
and the source of the title is given. The more important 
sources of such titles are indicated by the following abbrevia- 
tions : 

Baker. — Ernest A. Baker: A Guide to Historical Fiction. 

1914. 
Book Review Digest. — The Book Review Digest. 1905-21. 
Dixson. — Zella Allen Dixson : The Comprehensive Subject 

Index to Universal Prose Fiction. 1897. 
D. C. C. — Dramatic Compositions Copyrighted in the United 

States 1870 to 1916. 1918. 
Griswold, A. C. L. — W. M. Griswold : A Descriptive List of 

Novels and Tales Dealing with American Country Life. 

1890. 
Griswold A. C. L. — W. M. Griswold : A Descriptive List of 

of Novels and Tales Dealing with the History of North 

America. 1895. 

Johnson. — James Gibson Johnson: Southern Fiction Prior 
to i860 : An Attempt at a First-hand Bibliography. 1909. 

Lib. Sn. Lit. — The Library of Southern Literature. 1908- 
13. 

\ McIlwaine. — Virginia Fiction in the State Library. Pub- 
lished in the Richmond Virginian beginning July 1, 1911. 

Nat. Cvcl. — Americans in Fiction, Poetry, and the Drama, 
contained in the Index volume of the National Cyclo- 
paedia of American Biography. 

Xiei.d. — Jonathan Nield : A Guide to the Best Historical 
Novels and Tales. 1911. 
nX Painter.— F. V. N. Painter: Poets of Virginia. 1907. 

Roden. — Robert F. Roden : Later American Plays, 1831- 
1900. 1900. 

Swem. — Earl G. Swem : A Bibliography of Virginia. Part 



56] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

Wkoklin I{. \. F. — ( )scar Wegelin: Early American Fiction 
1774-1830. 1913. 

VVec.Ki.iN E. A. P. — Oscar Wegelin: Early American Plaxs 
1714-1830. 1905. 

Wells.—!!. W. Wells: Southern Literature of the Year. 
Forum. June, 1900. 

Whitney. — A Chronological Index to Historical Fiction. 
Third edition. Bulletin of the Boston Public Library. 
Volumes 10 and 1 1 . 

c. — Date of copyright. 

Anonymous: Tales of an American Landlord; Containing 
Sketches of Life South of the Potomac. New York. 
1824. (Columbia University Library. ) — *Donald Adair: 
a Novel. By a Young Lady of Virginia. 1828. 1 Swem. 
Mcllwaine) — * Rose-Hill : a Tale of the Old Domini. 
By a Virginian. 1836. (Johnson. Whitney) — Philip 
Randolph : A Tale of Virginia. By Mary Gertrude. New 
York. 1845.— *Winderhaus : A 'Tale of Richmond 30 
Years Ago. 1851. (Johnson) — *The Clifford Family: 
or, a Tale of the Old Dominion. By ( )ne of Her Daugh- 
ters. New York. 1852. ( Whitney 1 — Virginia in a 
Novel Form. ( Published in Putnam's Magazine, Jan- 
uary to May. 1853.) — *The Olive-branch; or. White 
Oak Farm. A Tale of Life in the Old Dominion. Phila- 
delphia. 1857. (Whitney) — *Lilias and Pier Cousin-: 
or, a Tale of Planter Life in the Old Dominion. L>y the 
Author of "Thomas Jackson." New York. 1860. (Whit- 
ney ) — *An Orphan of the Old Dominion. By Lumina 
Silverdale. Philadelphia. 1873. (Whitney) — *Doctor 
Phoenix Skelton ; or, The Man With a Mystery. By 
Fevvi Stesh. Fortress Monroe. 1887. < Whitney) — 
:;: Master-man. 1906. ( Bk. Rev. Digest. ) 

Ai.imoad, Marcus Blakey: Kstelle : An Idyl of old Vir 
ginia and Other Poems. cl884. — * Fairfax, My Lord, 
("an historical poem". Lib. Sn. Lit.) 

Ai.tsjiLlivR, Joseph Alexander: Before the Dawn: A Story 
of the Fall of Richmond. 1903. — *Scouts of Stonewall. 
1915. (Bk. Rev. Digest)— * Star of Gettysburg: A Story 
of Southern High Tide. 1915. (Bk. Rev. Digest) — 
*Shades of the Wilderness: A Story of Lee's Great 
Stand. 1916. (Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

Ashton, John: The Adventures and Discourses of Captain 
Iohn Smith, sometime President of Virginia, and Ad- 



VIRGINIA I, IKK IN FICTION [57 

miral of New England. . . . 1883. ( A biography in the 
form of fiction.) 

Bagby, George William : For Virginians (July. What I Did 

with my Fifty Millions. By Moses Adams. . . . 1N74. 
Bak^R, William Mitmeord: The Virginians in Texas: A 

Story for Young Old Folks and Old Young Folks. 1878. 

(First published in Harper's Magazine December 

1866, to June, 1867.) 

Baldwin, Joseph Glover: The Flush Times of Alabama 
and Mississippi: A Series of Sketches. New York. 1853. 
(New York Public Library.) 

Baldwin, Lydia Wood: A Yankee School-Teacher in Vir- 
ginia : A Tale of the Old Dominion in the Transition 
State. 1884. 

Barbe, Waitman : In the Virginias. 1896. ( A collection of 
short stories. ) 

Barker, James Nelson: The Indian Princess or, La Belle 
Sauvage. An Operatic Melo-drame in Three Acts. 1808. 
(Reprinted in Moses: Representative Plays by Amen- 
can Dramatists. ) 

Barnes, Charlotte M. S. (later Mrs. Conner) : The For- 
est Princess, or Two Centuries Ago. An Historical Play 
m Three Parts. (Published in her Plays Prose and 
Poetry. Philadelphia. 1848.) 

Barnes, James: The Son of Light Horse Harry. 1904. (A 
juvenile story of Robert E. Lee.) 

Barnett, Morris: * Yankee Peddler; or. Old Times in Vir- 
ginia. 1841. (Roden.) 

Barnum, Mrs. Frances Courtenay ( Baylor) : Behind the 
Blue Ridge: A Homely Narrative. 1887.— A Shocking 
Example and Other Sketches. 188 ( >._Claudia Hyde. 
1895. 

BartlEy, James Avis: Pocahontas. ( Published in his Lays 
of Ancient Virginia, and Other norms. Richmond. 1855. 
( Columbia University Library. ) 

Behn, Mrs. Aphra : The Widow Ranter ; or. The History of 
Bacon in Virginia. Acted in 1690. (Reprinted in Mon- 
tague Summers: Works of Aphra Helm.) 

Bennett, Emerson: The Fair Rebel: A Tale of Colonial 
Times. Cincinnati. cl853.— The Bride of tihe Wilder- 
ness. Philadelphia. cl854. ( Both in the New York 
Public Library.) 



58] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FlCTTON 

Bennett, Johannas: *La Belle San Antone. 1910. (A Vir- 
ginian in Texas.) (Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

Benson, Blackwood Ketch am : Who Goes There? The 
Story of a Spy in the Civil War. 1900. — Bayard's 
Courier : A Story of Love and Adventure in the Cav- 
alry Campaigns. 1902. — Old Squire : The Romance of 
a Black Virginian. 1903. 

BiERCE, Ambrose: A Horseman in the Sky. (A short story 
of the Civil War found in In the Midst of Life. 1891.) 

Blair, Louisa Coleman, and Williams, Robert Find- 
later : Nathaniel Bacon : A Play in Four Acts. 1907. 

Blanchard, Amy E. : The Four Corners. 1906. (Juvenile.) 

BloundEllE-Burton, J. E. : *The Land of Bondage. 1904. 
(Baker.) 

Boone, Henry Burnliam, and Brown, Kenneth: East- 
over Court House. 1901. — The Redfields Succession. 
1903. 

Bosher, Mrs. Kate LanglEy: *Bobbie. 1899. (Swem. Mc- 
Ilwaine) — Mary Gary: "Frequently Martha." 1910. — 
*Miss Gibbie Gault. 1911. (Bk. Rev. Digest)— The 
Man in Lonely Land. 1912.— Kitty Canary. 1918.— His 
Friend, Miss McFarlane. 1919. 

Bowen, Littleton P. : The Days of Makemie ; or, The Vine 
Planted. A. D. 1680-1708' cl885. 

Bouve, Pauline Carrington: *Their Shadows Before. 
ca 1900. (Wells.) 

Bowyer, James T. : The Witch of Jamestown : A Story of 
Colonial Virginia. 1890. 

Bradley, Arthur Granville: The Old Virginia Gentle- 
man. {Macmillan's Magazine, 48:131-140) — Sketches 
from Old Virginia. 1897. — Other Days : Recollections 
of Rural England and Old Virginia, 1860-1880. 1913. 
( None of these are strictly to be classed as fiction.) 

Bradley, Mary Emily : *Douglas Farm ; a Juvenile Story 
of Life in Virginia. 1857. (Lib. Sn. Lit.) 

Brady, Cyrus TownsEnd : The Patriots : The Story of Lee 
and the Last Hope. 1906. 

Brainerd, Eleanor (Hoyt) : *For Love of Mary Ellen. 
1912. (Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

Brebner, Percy J. : *A Gentleman of Virginia. 1910. 
(Nield.) 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [ 5 ( > 

Breckinridge, Mrs. Julia Anthony: *In Dead Earnest. 
1878. (Swem. Mcllwaine.) 

Brougham, John: An Original Aboriginal Erratic Operatic 
Semi-Civilized and Demi-Savage Extravaganza, being a 
Per-Version of Ye Trewe and Wonderfulle Hystorie of 
Ye Renownned Princesse, PO-CA-HON-TAS : or, The 
Gentle Savage. Acted in 1855. (New York Public Li- 
brary.) 

Bruce, Philip Alexander: Pocahontas and Other Son- 
nets. 1912. 

Bruce, William Cabell : Below the James : A Plantation 
Sketch. 1918. 

Bryan, Emma Lyon: 1860-1865: A Romance of the Val- 
ley of Virginia. cl892. 

Buchan, John : Salute to Adventurers. 1917. 

Buckley, R. Wallace: *The Last of the Houghtons. 
1907. (Baker.) 

Burcwyn, Collinson Pierrepont Edwards: *The Hugue- 
not Lovers : A Tale of the Old Dominion. 1889. (Swem. 
Whitney.) 

Butt, Martha Haines (later Mrs. Bennett) : Antifanati- 
cism : A Tale of the South. Philadelphia. 1853. (Are- 
ply to Mrs. Stowe.) (New York Public Library.) 

Butterworth, HezEkiah : The Boys of Greenway Court : 
A Tale of the Early Days of Washington. 1893. — In the 
Days of Jefferson: Or, The Six Golden Horseshoes: A 
Tale of Republican Simplicity. cl900. 

ByERS, Samuel H. M. : *Pocahontas, a Melodrama in 5 
Acts. 1875. (D. C.C.) 

Cabell, James Branch : The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck: 
A Comedy of Limitations. 1915. 

Caldwell, W. W. : Donald McElroy, Scotch Irishman. 
1919. 

Campbell, GabriellE Margaret Vere ("Marjorie 
Bowen") : The Soldier from Virginia. 1912. (A story 
of George Washington.) 

Carnahan, Louise: *Little Doctor Victoria, circa 1900. 
(Juvenile) (Wells). 

Carpenter, William H. : *Ruth Emsley, the Betrothed 
Maiden : A Tale of the Virginia Massacre. 1850. (Dix- 
son. Whitney.) 



60 ] VIRGINIA U FE I N ElCTlO N 

Carr, Kkm : -The Boy Bondsman. 1910. (Nield.) 

Caruthkrs, William Alexander: The Kentuckian in New 
York; or, The Adventures of Three Southerns. By a 
Virginian. New York. 1834. — The Cavaliers of Vir- 
ginia, or The Recluse of Jamestown. An Historical Ro- 
mance of the Old Dominion. New York. 1834-35. — The 
Knights of the Horse-Shoe; a Traditionary Tale of 
the Cocked Hat Gentry in the Old Dominion. Wetump- 
ka, Alabama. 1845. Reissued in New York. 1882 and 
1909. (New York Public Library.) 

Carter, Bernard VI.: * Pocahontas. (Included in A Med- 
ley: A Poem. London. 1823.) (Painter.) 

Carter, St. LEGER L. : *The Land of Powhatan. By a Vir- 
ginian. 1821. (Swem.) 

CastlEm an, Virginia Carter: Roger of Fairfield. 1906. — 
* Pocahontas; a Poem. cl907. (Swem.) 

Chapin, Anna Alice: *Under Trail. 1912. (Bk. Rey. 
Digest). — The Eagle's Mate. 1914. — Mountain Mad- 
ness. cl917. 

Chapman, George; Joxson, Bex; and Marston, John: 
Eastward Hoe. . . . London. 1605. 

Chapman, George: The Memorable Maske of the Two 
Honourable Houses or Innes of Court : the Middle Tem- 
ple and Lvncolns Inne. As it was performed before the 
King, at Whitehall on Shroue Munday at night; being 
the 15. of February. 1613. At the Princely celebration 
of the most Royall Nfyptialls of the Palsgrave, and his 
thrice gratious Princesse Elizabeth. &c. . . . Inuented, 
and fashioned, with the ground, and speciall structure 
of the whole worke, By our Kingdomes most Artfull and 
Ingenious Architect, lnnigo [ones. Supplied, Aplied, 
Digested, and written by Geo : Chapman. . . . 

Christian, William Asbury : *Mara)h : A Story of Old 

Virginia. 1903. ( Swam. | 
Claytor, Graii \m : Pleasant Waters: A Story of Southern 

Life and Character. 1888.— Wheat and Tares. 1889. 
Com;, Sylvanus, Jr. : *Orlando Chester. New edition. 1886. 

( Griswold ! !. X. A. ) 
Conway, Moncure Daniel: Pine and Palm. 1887. — *Pris- 

ons of Air. cl891. (Swem. Mcllwaine.) 
CookE, John EstEN : Leather Stocking and Silk: or, 

Hunter John Mvers and His Times. A Story of the Yal- 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [61 

ley of Virginia. New York. 1854. — The Virginia Comed- 
ians: or, Old Days in the Old Dominion. New York. 
1854.— The Youth of Jefferson ; or, A Chronicle of Col- 
lege Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, \. 1). 1764. 
New York. 1854. — Ellie; or, The Human Comedy. 
Richmond. 1855. — Tihe Last of the Foresters; or, Hu- 
mors on the Border; a Story of the Old Virginia Fron- 
tier. New York. 1856. — i [enry St. John, Gentleman, of 
"Flower of Hundreds," In the County of i 'rince George, 
Virginia: A Tale of 1774-75. New York. 1859.— Surry 
of Eagle's-Nest ; or, The Memoirs of a Staff-officer 
Serving in Virginia. New York. 1866. — Fairfax; or. 
The .Master of Greenway Conn. A Chronicle of the 
Valley of the Shenandoah. New York. 1868. — Mohun: 
A Novel. New York. 1869. — 1 lilt to Hilt: or, Days and 
Nights in the Shenandoah in the Autumn of 1864. New 
York. 1869.— Gaymount : A Novel. New York. 1870. 
— Doctor Vandyke : A Novel. New York. 1872. — Pret- 
ty Mrs. Gaston, and Other Stories. New York. cl874. 
— Justin Harley : A Romance of Old Virginia. Phila- 
delphia. 1875. — Canolles : The Fortunes of a Partisan 
of '81. Detroit. 1877.— Mr. Grantley's Idea. New York. 
cl879. — The Virginia Bohemians: A Novel. New York. 
1880. — My Lady Pokahontas : A True Relation of Vir- 
ginia. Writ by Anas Todkill, Puritan and Pilgrim. Bos- 
ton. 1885. (For a much more complete bibliography of 
Cooke, see John O. Beaty: John Bsten Cooke: Vir- 
ginian, shortly to be published.) 

Cooper, James FenimorE: The Spy : A Tale of the Neutral 
Ground. 1821. 

Gushing, Mrs. Eliza LanesEord (Foster) :); Yorktown; 
an Historical Romance. Boston. 1826. ( Swem. Whit- 
ney.) 

Custis, George Washington Parke : Pocahontas; or, The 
Settlers of Virginia, a National Drama, in Three Acts. 
.... Philadelphia. 1830. (Reprinted in Quinn: Rep- 
resentative American Plays. ) 

DabnEy, Virginius : The Story of Don Miff, as Told by His 
Friend John Bouche Whacker. A Symphony of Life 
1886.— *Gold That Did Not Glitter. 188 c >. (Swem. Mc- 
Ilvvaine.) 

Dagnall, John M. : Daisy Swain, the Flower of Shenan- 
doah. A Tale of the Rebellion. Brooklyn, N. Y. 1865. 
( New York Public Library. ) 



62] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

DaingErFiELD, Nettie Gray: Frescati : A Page from Vir- 
ginia History. 1909. 

Davis, John : Travels of Four Years and a Half in the 
United States. . . . London. 1803. (Contains Davis's 
first version of the Pocahontas story.) Reprinted, New 
York, 1909, edited by A. J. Morrison. — Captain Smith, 
and Princess Pocahontas, an Indian Tale. Philadelphia. 
1805. (This is Davis's second version of the Pocahon- 
tas story ; it is not a condensation of The First Settlers 
of Virginia.) — The First Settlers of Virginia, An His- 
torical Novel, Exhibiting a View of the Rise and Prog- 
ress of the Colony at Jamestown, a Picture of Indian 
Manners, the Countenance of the Country, and its Nat- 
ural Productions. The Second Edition Considerably En- 
larged. New York. . . . 1806. (Some copies bear the 
date 1805. All are labeled "Second Edition", Davis ap- 
parently considering* Captain Smith and Princess Poca- 
hontas as the first edition.) (New York Public Library. 
Columbia University Library.) 

Davis, Mary Diuguid: *She Waited Patiently. 1900. 
(Swem. Mcllwaine.) 

Davis, Rebecca Harding : * Kent Hampden. 1892. (Swem. 

Mcllwaine. ) 

Day, Mrs. W. C. : :: Virginia. Prehistoric and Antebellum. 

1889. (Swem. Mcllwaine.) 
Debenham, Mary H.: *In the Western Woods. 1909. (In 

A Fair Haven and Other Stories.) (Nield.) 

Defoe, Daniel : The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the fa- 
mous Moll Flanders. . . . eight years a transported 
Felon in Virginia. . . . 1722. — The History and Re- 
markable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque 
commonly call'd Colonel Jack. . . . kidnapped to Vir- 
ginia. . . . 1722. 
De Haven, Aubrey: *The Scarlet Cloak. 1907. (Baker.) 
Delano, Edith Barnard : *June. 1916. (Bk. Rev. Digest) 
*When Carey Came to Town. 1916. (Bk. Rev. Digest) 
—Two Alike. 1918. 
De Leon, T. Cooper : *Crag-Nest. 1910. (Nield.) 
Dixon. Thomas: The Southerner : A Romance of the Real 
Lincoln. 1913. — The Victim: A Romance of the Real 
Jefferson Davis. 1914. 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [63 

Doddridge, Joseph : Logan, The Last of the Race of Shi- 
kellemus, Chief of the Cayuga Nation. A Dramat'c 
Piece. Buffaloe Creeke, Brooke Country, Va. 1823. 
Reprinted in Cincinnati. 1868. (This volume also in- 
cludes The Dialogue of the Backwoodsman and the 
Dandy.) (New York Public Library.) 

DoolEy, Mrs. James: *Dem Good Ole Times. 1906. (Mc- 
Ilwaine.) 

Duggan, Mrs. Janie Pritchard : *Judith : A Story of 
Richmond. 1897. (Lib. Sn. Lit.) 

Dunn, Byron Archibald: *The Boy Scouts of the She- 
nandoah. 1917. (Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

Dupuy, Eliza Ann: The Huguenot Exiles; or, The Times 
of Louis XIV. A Historical Novel. New York. 1856. 
(New York Society Library.) 

Dye, Eva Emery : The Conquest : The True Story of Lewis 
and Clark. 1902. 

Eastman, Mrs. Mary H. : Aunt Phillis's Cabin; or, South- 
ern Life As It Is. Philadelphia. 1852. (A reply to Mrs. 
Stowe. ) (New York Public Library.) 

Eaton, Walter Pritchard: *The Boy Scouts in the Dis- 
mal Swamp. 1914. (Juvenile.) (Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

Edmonds, Fred. : * Pocahontas ; Comic Operetta in 2 Acts. 
.... 1916. (D. C. C.) 

EgglESTOn, George Cary : A Man of Honor. cl873. — South- 
ern Soldier Stories. 1898. — *Camp Venture: A Story 
of the Virginia Mountains. 1901. (Juvenile) (Swear). 
— Dorothy South: A Love Story of Virginia Just Be- 
fore the War. 1902.— The Master of Warlock: A Vir- 
ginia War Story. 1903.— Evelyn Byrd. 1904.— A Cap- 
tain in the Ranks : A Romance of Affairs. 1904. — Love 
Is the Sum of It All. 1907.— The Warrens of Virginia: 

A Novel Founded on the Play of William C. 

de Mille. cl908. — Two Gentlemen of Virginia : A Novel 
of the Old Regime in the Old Dominion. 1908. — Irene 
of the Mountains : A Romance of Old Virginia. 1909. 
— Westover of Wanalah : A Story of Love and Life in 
Old Virginia. 1910. 

EgglKston, Joseph William : *Tuckahoe; an Old-fashion- 
ed Story of an Old-fashioned People. 1903. (Swem. 
Lib. Sn. Lit.) 



64 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 



Ku.is. Edward Sylvester: * Uncrowning a King. 1896. 

(Juvenile) (Baker). — *The Cromwell of Virginia. 

1904. (Juvenile) ( Baker)— *The Last Emperor of the 

Old Dominion. 1904. (Juvenile) (Raker) — *Storm 

Mountain. (Dixson. Whitney.) 
English, Thomas Dunn : The Burning of [amestown. 

(This poem is reprinted in B. E. Stevenson: Poem 

American History. ) . 

E WELL, Alice Maude : A White Guard to Satan 

cl900. ( A story of Bacon's Rebellion. ) — *A Long Time 
Ago in Virginia and .Maryland, with a Glimpse of Old 
England. 1907. (Swem. Bk. Rev. Digest,) 

Eyster, NELLIE Blessing: *A Colonial Boy. 1889. (Whit- 
ney. Griswold H. \. A. ) 

Pluming, May Agnes : The Virginia Heiress. 1888. 

Floyd, Nicholas Jackson : -Thorns in the Flesh. A Ro- 
mance of the War and Ku Klux Periods. A Voice of 
Vindication from the South in Answer to A Fool's 
Errand and Other Slanders. 1885. | Swem. Mcllwaine). 
— *The Last of the Cavaliers; or, The Phantom Peril. 
A Historical Romance Dealing with the Cause and Con- 
duct of the War between the Sections of the American 
Union. cl904. (Swem. Mcllwaine.) 

Forrester, Ezola L. : *Polly Page Ranch Club. 1911. (Vir. 
ginia Girls in Wyoming. ) (Bk. Rev. Digest. ) 

FrasER, Mars Crawford (Mrs. Hugh Eraser): In the 
Shadow of the Lord. 1906. (A Story of Washington's 
Mother. ) 

Freeman, Mary Wilkins: The Heart's Highway: A Ro- 
mance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century. cl900. 

Filler, Hulbert: Vivian of Virginia. . . . 1897. ( A Story 
of Bacon's Rebellion.) 

Garber, Virginia Armistkad: Pocahontas. cl906. ( Verse. ) 
Gardener, Helen Hamilton (later Mrs. Smart) : An Un- 
official Patriot. cl894. (Dramatized as The Rev. Grif- 
fith Davenport. ) 

Gillette, William: Secret Service: A Drama of "The 
Southern Confederacy." First performed in 1895. 
(Printed in Quinn : Representative American Plays.) 

Glasgow, Ellen Anderson Giiolson: The Descendant: A 
Novel. 1897.— Phases of an Inferior Planet. 1898.— 



VIRGINIA I. IKK IN FICTION [65 

The Voice of the People. 1900. — The Battle Ground. 

1002— The Deliverance: A Romance of the Virginia 
Tobacco Fields. 1904.— The Wheel of Life. D06.— 
The Ancient Law. 1008. — The Romance of a Plain Man. 
1909 — The Miller of Old Church. 1911. — Virginia. 
1913. — Life and Gabriella: The Story of a Woman's 
Courage 1916.— Dare's Gift. (A short story published 
in Harper's Magazine, February and March. 1917.) — 
The Builders. 1919. 

Goods, Kate Tucker: A 1'rincess of Virginia: A Drama. 
i Published in Lippincott's Magazine, June, 1907.) 

Goodwin, Maud Wilder: The Head of a Hundred: Being 
An Account of Certain Passages in the Life of Humph- 
rey Huntoon Esq'r Sometyme an Officer in the Colony 
of Virginia. . . . cl895. — White Aprons : A Romance 
of Bacon's Rebellion: Virginia, 1876. cl896. — Sir Chris- 
topher. . . . 1901. (Virginia and Maryland circa 
1644. > 

Gordon, Armistead Churchill, and, Page, Thomas Nel- 
son : Befo' de War. 1888. (Poems in negro dialect. ) 

Gordon, Armistead Churchill: *The Gift of the Morn 
ing Star : A Story of Sherando. 1905. ( Swem. Bk. Rev. 
Digest). — Robin Aroon: A Comedy of Manners. 1908. 
— Maje: A Love Story. 1914. — Ommirandy. Plantation 
Life at Kingsmill. 1917. — *Envion and Other Tales of 
Old and New Virginia. ( Lib. Sn. Lit. > 

1 i \i .!., Granville Davisson : Daughter of the Elm : A Tale 
of Western Virginia Before the War. 1899. 

Hancock, Albert Elmer: Henry Bourland: The Passing 
of the Cavalier. 1901. 

Hancock, Elizabeth HazlEwood (see also Neale, Wal- 
ter): *Betty Pembroke. 1907. ( Lib. Sn. I .it. * 

Harlan, Caleb: Ida Randolph of Virginia. A "Historical 
Novel in Verse. Second edition. 1890. 

Harland, Marion (Mrs. Mar) Virginia Hawes Terhune) : 
Alone, c 1854.— *The Hidden Path. 1855. I Mcllwaine). 
Nemesis. I860.— Sunnybank. 1866.— *At Last. 187o. 
(Mcllwaine). — Judith: A Chronicle of Old Virginia. 
1884.— His Great Self. cl891. (A stor) of William 
Byrd).— An Old-Field School Girl. 1897.— *In Our 
County: Stories of Old Virginia Life. 1901. i Swem. I 
— *The Carringtons of Hieh Mill. 1919. — *When 



66] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

Grandmamma was New : The Story of a Virginia Girl- 
hood in the Forties. — *When Grandmamma Was Four- 
teen. (The last three titles are taken from advertise- 
ments.) 
Harrison, Constance Cary (Mrs. Burton Harrison) : BeS- 
haven Tales ; Crow's Nest ; Una and King David. 1892. 
— Flower de Hundred : The Story of a Virginia Planta- 
tion. 1890.— *In Cherrycote. 1890. (In An Edelweiss 
of the Sierras) (Mcllwaine). — Sweet Bells out of 
Tune. 1893.— A Virginia Cousin. 1895.— A Son of the 
Old Dominion. 1897. — Winwood's Luck. (A short story 
published in Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1901.) 
—The Carlyles: A Story of the Fall of the Confede- 
racy. 1905. — The Count and the Congressman. cl908. 
— ^Thirteen at Table. 18 l )7. (Mcllwaine.)— *Worros- 
quoyacke. 1897. (Mcllwaine.) 
Harrison, Henry Sydnor: Queed. 1911.— V. V.'s Eye- 

1913.— Angela's Business. 1915. 
Hart, Charles B. ; and Pal it, A. : * Pocahontas, the Indian 
Queen, a comic opera in 2 acts. . . . 1886. (D. C. C.) 
Hart, Jerome Alfred: * Vigilante Girl. 1910. (Bk. Rev. 

Digest.) 
Hatchett, R ! ,\ m i k L.\ m kin : M yra : A Novel. 1884. 
Haw, Mary Jane : The Beechwood Tragedy : A Tale of the 
Chickahominy. 1889. (An enlarged edition of *The 
Rivals: A Chickahominy Story. 1863.) (New York 
Public Library.) 
Lays, Inda Barton : *Dixie Dolls and Other Talcs. 1904. 

(Swem. Mcllwaine.) 
Houston, A. C. : *Hugh Harrison. 1890. (The story of a 

mulatto boy.) (Swem. Mcllwaine.) 
HazElton, G. C, Jr.: 'The Raven: The Love-Story of 

Edgar Allan Poe. 1909. (Nield.) 
Heath, James Ewell : *Edge-Hill ; or, The Family of the 
Fitzroyals. 1828. (Johnson. Swem. Mcllwaine.) — 
Whigs and Democrats ; or, Love of No Politics. A Com- 
edy in 3 Acts. Richmond. 1839. (New York Public 
Library.) 
Heller, RoblEy Eugene: * Appomattox: A Drama in 4 

Acts. 1899. (D. C. C.) 
Hendrick, Welland : * Pocahontas : A Burlesque Operetta 
in 2 Acts. 1886. (D. C. C.) . 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [67 

Henry, O. (William Sydney Porier) : Options. 1908. (Two 
Virginia Stories, Best-Seller and Thimble, Thimble, are 
found in this volume.) 

Henty, G. A. : With I ee in Virginia : A Story of the Amer- 
ican Civil War. 1889. (Juvenile.) 

Herbert, Henry W. ("Frank Forester") : *Quorndon 
Hounds; or, A Virginian at Melton Mowbray. Phila- 
delphia. 1856. (Whitney). 

HergesheimER, Joseph : Mountain Blood. 1915. 

HildrETh, Richard: *The Slave; or, The Memoirs of 
Archy Moore. Boston. 1836. (Whitney.) 

HillER, Thomas Oliver Prescott: *Pocahontas; or, The 
Founding of Virginia. A Poem. In Three Cantos. Lon- 
don. 1865. (Swem.) 

Holden, John Jarvis: A Woman's Pity. (This poem on 
Pocahontas is found in Nellie U. Wallington : Ameri- 
can History by American Poets.) 

Hoare, E. N. : *Paths in the Great Waters. . . . 1883. 
(Whitney.) 

Hope, James Barron : Arms and the Man: A Metrical Ad- 
dress Recited on the One Hundredth Anniversary (Oc- 
tober 19th, 1881), of the Surrender of Lord Cornwallis 
at Yorktown. . . . Norfolk, Va. 1882. 

Hopkins, Samuel : The Youth of the Old Dominion. Bos- 
ton. 1856. (New York Public Library.) 

Horsley, Reginald: *Stonewall's Scout: A Story of the 
American Civil War. 1896. (Baker.) 

Hough, Emerson: *Way of a Man. 1907. (Bk. Rev. 
Digest.") 

Houssaye, Mme. S. de la: *La Maride Marguerite. (Lib. 
Sn. Lit.) 

Howard, Bronson: Shenandoah: A Military Comedy in 
Four Acts. (First performed in 1889. Novelized by Hen- 
ry Tyrrell, q. v.) 

Hunter, Mrs. Martha Featon : *The Clifford Family; or, 
A Tale of the Old Dominion. 1852. (Swem.) 

Ingraham, J. H. : *The Bold Insurgent. (In The Young 
Artist and The Bold Insurgent. 1846.) (Swem.) 



68] VIRGINIA l.IEE IN FICTION 

[ron. X. C: ^Hearts Forever: or. The Old Dominion Bat- 
tle-grounds. A Tale of 1782. New York. 1866. (Whit- 
ne) . I 

James, George Payne Rainseord: The Old Dominion : or, 
A Tale of Virginia. 1856. 

Jett, James: *A Virginia Tragedy, i Lib. Sn. Lit.) 

Johnsto -, \J \ky: Prisoners of Hope: A Talc of Colonial 
Virginia. 1898. ( Published in England under the title 
of The Old Dominion)— To Have and To Hold. 1899. 
i Published in England under the title of By Order of 
the Company. First appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, 
June, 1899, to December, 189)).— Audrey. 1902. (First 
appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, May, 1901, to Febru- 
ary, 1902).— Lewis Rand, 1908.— The Long Roll. 1911. 
Cease Firing. 1912. — Hagar. 1913. 

Jones, lonx P>eauchamp: Wild Southern Scenes: A Tale 
of Disunion! and Border War! Philadelphia. cl859. 
(New York Public Library. ) 

KalER, J. O. : *With Lafayette at Yorktown. 1904. (Juve- 
nile) i Baker ). 

Kennedy, John Pendleton: Swallow Barn, or A Sojourn 
in the Old Dominion. 1832. Revised edition. 1851. — 
Horse-Shoe Robinson. \ Tale of the Tory Ascendancy. 
1835. 

Kennedy, Sara : The Wooing of Judieth. 1902. 

KESTER, Paul: His Own Country. cl917. (A very un- 
Virginian view of the race problem. I 

KESTER, Vauch w : John o' Jamestown. cl907. 

Kilby, L. Clay: *Vernon Lonsdale. 1876. (Swem. Mc- 
Ilwaine. ) 

King, R. : The Chief's Daughter; or, The Settlers in Vir- 
ginia, n. d. i Whitney gives the date as 1868. ) 

Kingston, W. H. G. : ;;; Thc Settler-: A Tale of Virginia, 
n. d. i Whitney, i 

Knox, Dorothea Heness: *The Heart of Washington 
1909. i Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

KoEbERLE, G. : *Die Heldin von Yorktown. Tragoedie. 
(Whitney. I 

Lane, Elinor Macartney: 'The Mills of God. 1 ( X)1 
( Baker. ) 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN I'lC! CON [69 

Lane, !<>hn Haden: *The Mirth of Liberty: A Story oi 
Bacon's Rebellion. 1909. (Baker.) 

Lanier, Sidney: Tiger-Lilies. A Novel. 1867. 

La SellE, E. P. : * A True Virginian. 1893. (Swem. Mc- 
Ilwaine. ) 

LatimER, Mary Elizabeth ( Wormej Ea ) : Our Cousin Ve- 
ronica; or, Scenes and Adventures over the Blue Ridge. 
New York. 1855. 

Lawson, Thomas W. : *Friday the 13th. 1907. (Bk. Rev. 
Digest, i 

Lea, Fannie Heaslip (Mrs. Fannie Heaslip Agi 
*Ouicksands. 1911. (Bk. Rev. Digest).— * Sicily Ann. 
1914. ( Bk. Rev. Digest. ) 

Lke. George Taylor: *A Virginia Fend. 1907. (Lib. Sn. 
Lit.) 

LEE, James Hampton : Letters of Two; or, The True His- 
tory of a Late Love Affair. cl901. 

Leslie, Lawrence J.: Lost in the Great Dismal Swam]]. 

Juvenile. cl913. 
Lincoln, Natalie Sumner: The Lost Despatch. 1913. 
Lindsay, Nicholas Vachel: Our Mother Pocahontas. 

( This poem is found in The Chinese Nightingale and 

Other Poems. 1917.) 

LiTTLEfofct', Jesse Talbot: *The Story of Captain Smith 
and Pocahontas. 1907. (Verse,) (Lib. Sn. Lit.) 

Lovell, Mrs. W. S. : *Pocahontas. (See J. M. Clapp: 
Plays for Amateurs, p. 3". I 

Lucas, Daniel Bedinger: The Maid of Northumberland: 
A Dramatic Poem. 1S7' ! . 

Lynde, Francis: *Kfng of Arcadia. 1909. (Bk. Rev. Di- 
gest. ) 

McCabE, James DabnEy: *The Aide-de-Camp : A Romance 
of the War. 1863? (Lib. Sn. Lit.)— *The Guerrillas. 
An Original Domestic Drama, in Three Acts. 1863. 
(Roden.) 

McCardell, Roy Larcom : *Diamond From the Sky. 1916. 
I Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

McCarty, W. Pace: The Golden Horseshoe. A Drama. 
1876. 



70] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

McClelland, Mary Greenway: Princess. 1886. — *A Self- 
Made Man. 1887. (Lib. Sn. Lit.)— *The Ghost of Dred 
Power. 1888. (Swem. Lib. Sn. Lit.) — Burkett's Lock. 
1889.— ?: A Nameless Novel. cl891. — *Broadoaks. 
1893. (Swem. Mcllwaine)— The Wonder-Witch. (A 
story published in Lip pine ott's Magazine, June, 1894.) 

McGlone, Susie G. : *A Virginia Heroine : A Comedy in 3 
Acts. 1908. (D. C. C.) 

MaclEod, Anna Mary ("Archibald Campbell"): Captain 
MacDonald's Daughter. 1887. 

McManus, Thomas J. Luke : *The Boy and the Outlaw. 
1905. (Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

Magill, Mary Tucker : The Holcombes : A Story of Vir- 
ginia Home-Life. 1871. — *Under the Pruning Knife: A 
Story of Southern Life. 1888. (Swem. Mcllwaine. Lib. 
Sn. Lit.) 

Magruder, Julia : Across the Chasm. cl885. — Miss Ayr of 
Virginia, and Other Stories. cl896. 

Marr, Mrs. Jane Barron Hope: *Stories and Papers [?]. 
Lib. Sn. Lit.) 

Marriott, Crittenden : Sally Castleton, Southerner. 1913. 

Martin, Joseph Hamilton: *Smith and Pocahontas: A 
Poem. Richmond. 1862. (Painter. Lib. Sn. Lit.) 

MasefiEu>, John: Lost Endeavour. 1910. — Captain Mar- 
garet. 1916. 

Mayo, Joseph: Woodbourne: A Novel of the Revolution- 
ary Period in Virginia and Maryland. 1884. 

Minor, T. C. : *Her Ladyship. 1880. (Whitney). 

Mitchell, Silas Weir: The Youth of Washington: Told 
in the Form of an Autobiography. 1904. 

MoELLER, Philip: Pokey, or The Beautiful Legend of the 
Amorous Indian : A Cartoon Comedy. ( This burlesque 
of the Pocahontas story is found in Moeller's Five 
Somewhat Historical Plays. 1918.) 

Moore, : *The Captives of Abb's Valley. (Mcllwaine 

and Lib. Sn. Lit. ascribe this novel to Rev. Henry 
Brown, or Browne. Mcllwaine gives the date as 1854. 
Whitney ascribes the novel to Moore. ) 

Moore, James: *The Siege of Richmond. 1882. (Whitney.) 

Moore, Thomas: A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal 
Swamp. Written at Norfolk, in Virginia. (1803.) 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [71 

Moran, Mrs. Jane W. (Blackburn) : *Miss Washington 
of Virginia: A Semicentennial Love-Story. (Lib. Sn. 
Lit.) 

Moran, W. H. W. : *From the School-room to the Bar. 

1892. (Dixson. Lib. Sn. Lit.) 

Morgan, George : The Issue. 1904. 

Morris, George Pope : Pocahontas. (This short poem is re- 
printed in B. E. Stevenson: Poems of American His- 
tory.) 

Morrison, John B. : *An Original Tale; Isabella of Brooke ; 
Contrasting the Manners and Customs of the Early Set- 
tlers of Pennsylvania with . . . 1830. (Wegelin E. 
A. F.) 

Mosby, Mary Webster ("M. M. Webster"): Pocahontas: 
A Legend. With Historical and Traditionary Notes. 
Richmond. 1840. 

Musick, John Roy: *Pocahontas: A Story of Virginia. 

1893. (Svvem. Dixson.)— *A Century Toon Soon. (Nat. 
Cycl.) 

Neale. Walter, and Hancock, Elizabeth HazlEwood: 
*The Betrayal: A Novel. 1910. (Swem. Bk. Rev. 
Digest.) 

Nelson, James Poyntz: *Balla, and Other Virginia Stories. 
1914. (Swem.) 

XkvtllE, Laurence {pseudonym?): *Edith Allen; or, 

Sketches of Life in Virginia. Richmond. 1855. (Swem. 

Mcllwaine. ) 
O'Connor, Mrs. Elizabeth ( Paschal) : Little Thank You. 

1913. 
I )i)Ei.L, Edson Kenny: *The Romance of Pocahontas. 1912. 

(Verse.) (Swem.) 

Olney, Mary xVllan : *Harmonia. 1888. ( Whitney. Gris- 
wold H. N. A.) 

Owen, Robert Dale : Pocahontas : A Historical Drama, in 
5 Acts ; with an Introductory Essay and Notes. By a 
Citizen of the West. New York. 1837. (New York 
Public Library.) 

i., J. W. : *Uncle Robin, in His Cabin in Virginia, and 
Tom Without One in Boston. 1853. ( A reply to Mrs. 
Stowe. ) ( Swem. Johnson.) 



72 I VIRGINIA LIFE IX FICTION 

Pack, Sarah Chichester: Virginia Potluck. (A short 
story published in Lippinc&tfs Magazine, October. 

1905.) 

Page, ThomAvS Nelson i See also Gordon, A. C.) : In Ole 
Virginia. 1887. — Two Little Confederates. 1888.- 
Among the Camps; or, Young People's Stories of the 
War. 1891.— On Newfound River. 1891. 1906.— Elsket 
and Other Stories. 1891.— Pastime Stories. 1894. 1898. 
—The Burial of the Guns. 1894.— The Old Gentleman 
of the Black Stock. 1897. DOU— Two Prisoners. 1898. 
1903.— Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction. 1898. 
—Santa Claus's Partner. 1899.— A Captured Santa 
Clans. 1902.— Gordon Keith. 1903.— Bred in the Bone. 
1904.— Under the Crust. 1907. — John Marvel, Assis- 
tant. 1909.— The Land of the Spirit. 1913. 

Palmer, Frederick: The Vagabond. 1903. 

Parrish, Randall: My Lady of the North: The L- 

Story of a Gray- Jacket. 1904. 
Patterson, MarjoriE: *Dus1 of the Road. 1913. ( Bk. Rev. 

Digest. ) 
Paulding, Fames Kjrke: Westward Ho! A Tale. New 

York. '1832.— The Puritan and His Daughter. Xew 

York. 1849. 
Payson, William Farquhar: Barry Gordon. 1 ( X)8. 

Pearson, Mrs. Emily Clemens: Cousin Franck's House- 
hold, or Scenes in the Old Dominion. Boston. cl852. — 
*Ruth's Sacrifice; or, Life on the Rappahannock. 1863. 
(Whitney.) 

PembER, Mrs. P. Y. : A Virginia Visit. (A short story pub- 
lished in Harper's Magazine, December, 1883.) 

Pendleton, Edmund : A Virginia Inheritance. 1888. 

PEPLE, Edward Henry : The Littlest Rebel. 1911. 

Peyton, John Lewis: Tom Swindel; or, The Adventures 
of a Boomer. 1893. 

Pickett, LasallE Corbell ( Mrs. George E. Pickett) : The 
Bugles of Gettysburg. 1913. 

Pollard, Eliza F. : *The Old Moat Farm: A Story of 
Queen Elizabeth's Days. 1905. (Baker.) 

Power, Thomas F. : :;: The Virginia Veteran; a Military 
Drama in Four Acts. 1874. (D. C. C. Whitney.) 



V I k< ; I \ I A I.I FE I N FICTION [ 73 

Powers, William Dudley : *Uncle Isaac; or, Old Days in 

the South. 1899. (Wise.) (Swem. Painter.) 
Pratt, Lucy: *Ezekiel. 1899. (A story of Hampton In- 
stitute.) (Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

Preston, Mrs. Margaret Junkin : *Silverwood : A Book 
of Memories. 1856. (Lib. Sn. Lit. Johnson. )— Beech- 
enbrook: A Rhyme of the War. Richmond. 1865.— 
Aunt Dorothy: An Old Virginia Plantation Story. 1890. 
( First appeared as Aunt Dorothy's Funeral in Harper's 
Magazine, October, 1889. )_ Colonial Ballads and Son- 
nets. 1887. 

PrEvost, L'Abbe : Le Philosophe Anglais ou Histoire de M. 
Cleveland, fils naturel de Cromwell, ecrite par lui-mesme, 
et traduite de l'anglais par l'auteur des memoires d'un 
homme de qualite. 1728. (See Gilbert Chinard : 
L'Amerique et le Reve Exotique, pp. 281 ft.) 

Pryor, Sara Agnes (Mrs. Roger A. Pryor) : The Colonel's 
Story. 1911. 

Putnam, Mrs. Salue A. (Brock): Kenneth. My Kine- 
1873. 

PylE, Howard: Within the Capes: A Sea Story. 1885. — 
* Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes. (Utica Public Li- 
brary List of Historical Fiction.) 

Rathborne, St. George: *Miss Fairfax of Virginia. (Lib. 
Sn. Lit.) 

Raymond, James F. : *The Lost Colony. cl891. (Swem. 
Mcllwaine.) 

Raymond, Walter Marion : Citronaloes. 1888.— Rebels of 
the New South. 1905. 

REED, Sarah A. : *A Romance of Arlington House. 1907. 
(Juvenile.) (Baker.) 

Riley, Elihu S. : *Yorktown; American Historic Drama in 
5 Acts. 1911. (D. C. C.) 

Rives, AmeliE (Princess Troubetzkoy) : The Quick or the 
Dead, 1888. (First appeared in Uppincott's Magazine 
April, 1888.)— Virginia of Virginia. 1888. ( First ap- 
peared in Harper's Magazine, January, 1888.)— Tanis, 
the Sang-digger. 1893.— *Hidden House. 1912. ( Bk 
Rev. Digest.)— *World's-End. 1914. (Bk. Rev. Di- 
gest.)— ^Shadows of Flames. 1915. (Bk. Review Di- 
gest.)— The Ghost Garden. 1918 



74] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

Rives, HalliE Erminie (Mrs. Rives- Wheeler) : A Furnace 
of Earth. cl900.— Hearts Courageous. cl902.— Satan 
Sanderson. cl907. — The Valiants of Virginia. cl912. 

Robertson, John : *Virginia; or, The Fatal Patent. — A 
Metrical Romance in Three Cantos. Washington. 1825. 
(Painter. Johnson.) 

Robins, Edward: A Boy in Early Virginia; or, Adventures 
With Captain John Smith. cl901. (Juvenile.) 

Robins, Sally Nelson : A Man's Reach. 1916. 

Robinson, Annie E., and Charles W. : *Poeahontas. Li- 
bretto of Opera in 5 Acts. 1891. ( D. C. C.) 

Roche, [ames L. : * Appomattox, the War of the Blue and 
the Gray: A Drama in 5 Acts. 1892. (D. C. C.) 

Roe, E. P.: "Miss Lou." cl888. 

Ropp, Edwin Oliver ( "Tecumtha" ) : Pocahontas. 1906. 
(Drama. ) 

Rose, Johann WilhElm : * Pocahontas, Schauspiel mit ge- 
sang, in fuenf akten. Ansbach. 1784. (O. G. T. Son- 
neck : Catalogue of Opera Librettos Printed before 1800. 
Vol. I. 1914.) 

Ross, Clinton : The Scarlet Coat. 1896. 

Ryals, J. V. : * Yankee Doodle Dixie; or, Love the Light of 
Life: An Historical Romance Illustrative of Life and 
Love in an Old Virginia Country Home. . . . 1890. 
( Swem.) 

Ryan, Margaret: * Sue Terry. 1904. (Mcllwaine. ) 

Sage, William : The Claybornes : A Romance of the Civil 
War. 1902.— A Maid' of Old Virginia : A Romance of 
Bacon's Rebellion. 1915. 

Scott John Reed: AVoman in Question. 1909. (Bk. Rev. 
Digest.)— *Red Emerald. 1914. (Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

SeawEll, Molly Elliott : The Berkeleys and Their Neigh- 
bors. cl888. — Throckmorton. cl890. — *Children of 
Destinv. 1893. ( Griswold H. N. A.)— Through Thick 
and Thin. 1893.— A Virginia Cavalier. cl896.— The 
Victory. 1906.— Betty's Virginia Christmas. 1914. 

Sharts, Joseph : The Vintage. 1911. 

Sherman, John W. : * Virginia: A Drama of the Times 
that Tried Men's Souls. 1892. (D. C. C.) 



VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION [75 

Sherwood, Margaret Pollock : *Coming of the Tide. 
1906. (Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

Sigournev. Mrs. Lydia HuntlEy : Pocahontas, and Other 
Poems. New York. 1841. (Columbia University Li- 
brary.) 

Smith, Francis Hopkinson : Colonel Carter of Cartersville. 
1891. (First appeared in the Century Magazine, No- 
vember, 1890, to April, 1891.) —Colonel Carter's 
Christmas. cl903. 

Smith, Seba: Powhatan: A Metrical Romance, in Seven 
Cantos. New York. 1841. 

Snead, GeorgiE Tillman : * Beneath Virginia Skies. 1904. 
( Swem. Mcllwaine.) 

SnidER, Denton J.: Lincoln at Richmond: A Dramatic 
Epos of the Civil War. cl914. 

South worth, Mrs. Emma Dorothy Eliza (Nevitte) : 
The Mother-in-Law : A Tale of Domestic Life. Phila- 
delphia. 1860. 

Spaulding, Mary C. ; and Miller, Ida Farr : *A Virginia 
Colonel ; introducing a few incidents from The Vir- 
ginians. 1898. (D. C. C.) 

Spratt, Dora E. W. : *Christmas Week at Bigler's Mill. 
(Dixson.) 

Springer, Mary Elizabeth: Dolly Madison: A Story of 
the War of 1812. 1906. 

Stanard, Mary Newton : *The Dreamer. 1909. ( A story 
of Edgar Allan Poe.) (Nield.) 

Stevenson, Burton Egbert: A Soldier of Virginia: A 

Tale of Colonel Washington and Braddock's Defeat. 

1901. — The Heritage: A Storv of Defeat and Victory. 

1902. 
Stewart, Robert Armistead: Knights of the Golden 

Horseshoe and Other Lays. 1909. 

Stimson, Frederic Jesup : King Noanett: A Story of Old 
Virginia and the Massachusetts Bay. 1896. 

Stockton, Francis Richard: The Late Mrs. Null. cl886. 
—The Girl at Coburst. 1898. 

Stoddard, W. O. : *The Spy of Yorktown. (From an ad- 
vertisement.) 



76 | VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

StratEmEyer, Edward : With Washington in the West ; or, 
A Soldier Boy's Battles in the Wilderness. 1901. (Ju- 
venile.) 
Stuart, Ralph; and, Bragdon, Dudley A.: *Appamatox. 

1897. (Drama.) ( D. C. C.) 
Thackeray, William Makepeace: The Virginians: A 
Tale of the Last Century. 1857-9. 

Thornton, M. Jacqueline: Di Cary. 1879. 

Thruston, Lucy Meacham : A Girl of Virginia. 1902. — 
Where the Tide Comes In. 1904.— Called to the Field : 
A Story of Virginia in the Civil War. 1906. 

Tiernan, Mary Spear (Nicholas): Homoselle. cl881. — 
Suzette. 1885.— *Jack Horner. 1890. (Baker.) 

Tiffany, Osmond: *Brandon. New York. 1858. (Gris- 
wold H. N. A.) 

Tomlinson, Everett T. : *Light Horse Harry's Legion. 
1910. (Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

TownsEnd, Charles: The Vagabonds: An Original Drama 
in Three Acts. cl895. — The Pride of Virginia: An 
Original Comedy in Four Acts. cl901. 

Tucker, George : The Valley of Shenandoah ; or, Memoirs 
of the Gray sons. New York. 1824. (Columbia Uni- 
versity Library.) 

Tucker, Nathaniel Beverley: The Partisan Leader: A 
Tale of the Future. Washington. 1856. (i.e. 1836). 
Reprinted, New York, 1861, as A Key to the Disunion 
Conspiracy. . . . Reprinted, Richmond, 1862. — George 
Balcombe. A Novel. New York. 1836. (Virginians in 
Missouri.) (Both novels are in the New York Public 
Library.) 

Tucker, Saint George : Hansford: A Tale of Bacon's 
Rebellion. Richmond. 1857. (Columbia University Li- 
brary. ) 

Tunstall, Nannie Whitmell: "No. 40." A Romance of 
Fortress Monroe and the Hygeia. Third edition. 1890. 

Turpin, Edna Henry LEE: Happy Acres. 1913. 

Twain, Mark (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), and War- 
ner. Charles Dudley: The Gilded Age: A Tale of 
To-day. cl873. (Colonel Sellers is a Virginian.) 

Twain, Mark : The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson. 1894. 
(Virginians in Missouri.) 



VIRGINIA I.IKE IX FICTION [77 

Tyler, OdETTE (Elizabeth Lee Kirkland) : *Boss: A Story 
of Virginia Life. (Lib. Sn. Lit.) 

Tyrrell, Henry: Shenandoah: Love and War in the Val- 
ley of Virginia, 1861-5. Based upon the Famous Play 
by Bronson Howard. cl902. 

Ullmann, Margaret: Pocahontas: A Pageant. el912. 

Vance, Wilson J. : Big John Baldwin. 1909. 

Van Vorst, Marie: Big Tremaine: A Novel. 1914. 

Waldron, William Watson : Pocahontas, Princess of Vir- 
ginia ; and Other Poems. New York. 1841. 

Wall, Mary Virginia: The Daughter of Virginia Dare. 
1908. (A Story of Pocahontas.) 

Warner, Charles Dudley (see also Twain, Mark) : Their 
Pilgrimage. 1886. (First appeared in Harper's Maga- 
zine, also in book form, in 1886. The original title paee 
reads 1887.) 

Warren, B. C. : Arsareth : A Tale of the Luray Caverns. 
cl893. (Probably the only Virginia novel which has an 
overseer as hero.) 

Warren, Mrs. Maude Lavinia: *Barbara's Marriages 
1915. (Bk. Rev. Digest.) 

Webster, J. Provand: ^Children of Wrath. 1899. ( Baker. ) 

Whitiiam, Grace I. : *Basil the Page : A Story of the Days 

of Queen Elizabeth. 1908. (Juvenile.) (Baker.) 
Whitmore, George S. : *In the Old Dominion ; in 3 Acts 

5 Scenes. 1898. ( D. C. C. ) 

Whitmore, Walter: *Wilburn: A Romance of the Old 
Dominion. (Whitney.) 

Wiley, George E. : ^Plantation Tales. 1906.. ( Swem. Mc- 
Ilwaine.) 

Williams, Charles E. : *The Penalty of Recklessness; or 
Virginia Society Twenty Years Ago: a Thrilling Ro- 
mance, a Tale of Love, Duelling, and Death, as Enacted 
Among the F. F. V. 1884. (Swem. Mcllwaine.) 

Williams, Mrs. Flora McDonald: Who's the Patriot? A 
Story of the Southern Confederacy. 1886. 

WiLS ,°t N m R ICHARD H £ N Rv ("Richard Fisquill") : *Mazel 

(Lib. Sn. Lit.) 

Winston, Nannie B. : *The Grace of Orders c 1901 
(Swem. Mcllwaine.) 



78] VIRGINIA LIFE IN FICTION 

Winterburn, Florence Hull : *Southern Hearts. 1900. 
(Swem. Mcllwaine.) 

VVisF, Henry A. : The Life and Death of Sam, in Virginia. 
By a Virginian. Richmond. 1856. (Know-nothingism 
in Virginia.) 

Wise, John Sergeant: The Lion's Skin: A Historical 
Novel and a Novel History. 1905. 

Wister, Owen : The Virginian : A Horseman of the Plains. 
1902. 

Wood, Annie Cogswell ("Algernon Ridgeway") : *West- 
over's Ward. 1892. (Lib. Sn. Lit.) — Diana Fontaine. 
1891. 

Young, Mary Stuart (Mrs. Louis G. Young) : *The Grif- 
fins : A Colonial Tale. 1904. (Swem. Mcllwaine.) 

The End 



VIRGINIA 1.IFIC IN FICTION [79 



VITA 

Jay Broadus Hubbell was born May 8, 1885, in Smythe 
County, Virginia. He attended Windsor Academy during the 
session of 1901-02. He spent the next three years at the 
University of Richmond (then Richmond College), and took 
his B. A. degree in 1905. While there, he took courses in 
English under Professors J. A. C. Chandler and F. C. Wood- 
ward. In 1905-06 he was Instructor in Latin and Greek in 
Bethel College, Russellville, Kentucky. The next two years 
he spent in graduate work in Harvard University. He took 
his A. M. degree there in 1908. At Harvard he took courses 
under Professors Kittredge, Baker, Neilson, Perry, Robin- 
son, Schofield, Von Jageman, Briggs, and Sheldon. In 1908- 
09 he was Instructor in English, in the University of North 
Carolina. The sessions of 1909-10 and 1914-15, the fall of 
1910, and the spring and summer of 1919 he spent in grad- 
uate study at Columbia University. While there, he took 
work with Professors Thorndike, Trent, Matthews, Erskine, 
Krapp, Fletcher, Ayres, and Jespersen. During the spring 
of 1911 he was head of the Department of English and Pub- 
lic Speaking in the Columbus, Georgia, High School. From 
1911 to 1914 he was Associate Professor of English at Wake 
Forest College. He came to Southern Methodist University 
in the fall of 1915; and, with the exception of a year and a 
half spent in military service and graduate work in Columbia 
University, he has been teaching there continuously ever 
since. He is now. acting head of the Department of English. 
He is joint-author, with his colleague, Professor John O. 
Beaty, of An Introduction to Poetry (Macmillan). 



LBFe'2; 



